To carry out its grand strategy in the Arctic, Russia relies on eroding the positions of other regional players. Denmark, a fellow member of the Arctic Council, is seen by Moscow as a relatively easy target, since Copenhagen can only remain an official stakeholder as... MORE

Repercussions of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 Flight MH17, which was shot down over occupied Donbas (eastern Ukraine) on July 17, 2014, continue to haunt the Russian authorities. Everyone on board—283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members—was killed. The 298 victims... MORE

Gitanas Nausėda was elected the next president of the Republic of Lithuania on May 26. The race was intense in both the first and second rounds. But in the end, Nausėda triumphed, crushing his opponent, Ingrida Šimonytė, 66 to 33 percent (Vrk.lt, June 3). Such... MORE

Something quite extraordinary happened in Russia last week: a loud public outcry forced the authorities to set free Ivan Golunov, an investigative journalist crudely framed by the police for drug possession. Neither the motley crowd of activists who joined ranks in protest against this selective... MORE

Two long-term natural gas contracts between Russia and Ukraine are set to expire in December. And as this deadline approaches, the two sides are preparing for necessary renegotiations. Kyiv needs to avoid a repetition of January 2009, when parts of Europe were left without gas... MORE

Three developments since early June 2019 call attention to China’s unrelenting efforts to become the dominant player on the Northern Sea Route (NSR)—the increasingly ice-free Arctic waterway along Russia’s northern coast, and the main segment of the longer Northeastern Passage, linking Asia and Europe. First,... MORE

Russia’s Baltic Shipyard (St. Petersburg) held a grand ceremony, on May 25, to celebrate the launching of the nuclear-powered Project 22220 (LK-60Ya) icebreaker Ural (Geoenergetika.ru, May 27, 2019). Following the festivities, Russian Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina stated that the event would be further commemorated... MORE

Over the last two years, United States President Donald Trump has sent six congratulatory letters to his Azerbaijani counterpart, President Ilham Aliyev. Collectively, these letters contained three important messages. First, they addressed Azerbaijan’s contribution to European energy security through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) and... MORE

Belarus’s location between Russia and the collective West is not a consequence of political considerations—it is a fact of geography. Likewise, the cultural proximity between Belarusians and Russians represents another objective reality, encouraging at least some Russian elites to entertain ideas of ever “tighter integration”... MORE

Note to readers: Moldova is presently facing perhaps its worst political crisis in almost three decades. As a result of the complex and fast-moving developments surrounding this volatile situation, The Jamestown Foundation is releasing a special, extended-length article in Eurasia Daily Monitor, analyzing the details... MORE