The meeting of 29 foreign ministers from member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in Washington, DC, last week (April 3–4), marking the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance, was not a joyful occasion for Russia. During the celebration, Russia was duly... MORE

Barring a radical destabilization of Xinjiang or fundamental shifts in Central Asian countries and their relations with major power centers abroad, Beijing will “very likely” establish a network of its own military bases in the region over the next five years, according to Dmitry Zhelobov,... MORE

President Petro Poroshenko may be the most Moscow-hated Ukrainian politician today. The Russian state-run propaganda machine has been lambasting Poroshenko for months ahead of the March 31 presidential election, and top officials publicly joined in. According to the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev,... MORE

On March 4, Romania, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan held a ministerial meeting in Bucharest—the first such quadripartite gathering for these governments. During this meeting of their foreign ministers, the parties issued a joint statement reaffirming mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability... MORE

A high-ranking Gazprom official has admitted for the first time that liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the United States have negatively impacted the Russian state-owned energy giant’s sales. Gazprom exported a record volume of gas to Europe in 2018, increasing its market share on... MORE

One of the Kremlin’s top propagandists, Dmitry Kiselev, called on March 31 for regime change in Moldova. Speaking on Russian state television, he urged russophile Moldovan President Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party and the pro-Western bloc NOW to form a situational alliance in order to replace... MORE

Russians are angry at the expanded presence of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ships in the Black Sea and especially in Ukrainian ports, viewing them as a challenge to Russian power and influence there. Some in Moscow and especially in Russian-occupied Crimea are even concerned... MORE

On March 23, a Russian defense ministry Ilyushin Il-62 passenger jet and an Antonov An-124 military cargo plane arrived at Simón Bolívar International Airport, having departed from the Chkalovsky military airbase (with an intermediate stop in Syria). Carrying 35 tons of cargo, the two aircraft... MORE

The third anniversary of the April 2016 “Four-Day War” between Armenia and Azerbaijan is fast approaching (see EDM, April 6, 2016). That deadly clash along the Karabakh Line of Contact ultimately catalyzed the transition of power in Armenia, through a popular revolution, from long-ruling Serzh... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held their fourth—although first “formal”—meeting, in Vienna, Austria, on March 29. The statement (Osce.com, March 29) following their talks, which were facilitated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, highlighted... MORE