Russians are not unanimous in their attitude toward Belarus. According to popular Belarusian online portal Tut.by’s Artyom Shraibman, politically influential Russians fall into three camps: Technocrats-Monetarists (e.g., Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev or former deputy prime ministers Arkady Dvorkovich and Anatoly Chubais), Imperialists (many “siloviki”—representatives of... MORE

On May 25, the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ordered Russia to release and repatriate to Ukraine all 24 sailors and three naval vessels, seized through military force off Crimea’s coast exactly six months earlier (see EDM, November 26, 2018),... MORE

The international community has devoted significant attention to the actions of Russian authorities in occupied Crimea to repress, marginalize and force out Crimean Tatars, a crime against humanity that involves harassment, arrests, and other kinds of mistreatment that are all too visible (Krymr.com, May 29).... MORE

Last fall, during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) massive Trident Juncture 2018 military exercises, 31 allied and partner countries, over 50,000 personnel, 10,000 vehicles, 150 aircraft and some 60 warships, including the carrier USS Harry Truman, gathered to practice large-scale maneuvers in Norway as... MORE

Azerbaijan’s participation in the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which took place in Beijing, on April 25–28, proved successful for Baku, having resulted in a number of important new, non-oil-sector investment projects in the South Caucasus country. Specifically, during the Forum, Azerbaijani... MORE

Serbia is preparing to sign a free trade agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in October, hoping to gain access to a market of 180 million people. At the same time, the Western Balkan country’s accession negotiations with the world’s largest trading bloc,... MORE

The interregnum in Kyiv invites probing from Moscow. “Let us start from a clean slate. We are open to dialogue,” the Russian Federation Council’s (upper chamber of the Russian parliament) chair, Valentina Matvienko, signaled to Ukraine via state-owned news agency TASS, on May 29. “We... MORE

Introduction: The U.S.-China “Trade War” Since Early 2018 For over a year, the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been engaged in a contentious trade dispute initiated by the Trump Administration over a host of alleged unfair Chinese trading practices: ranging... MORE

Introduction China established the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) (zhanlue zhiyuan budui, 战略支援部队) in late 2015 as part of a sweeping military reform that overhauled the PLA’s organizational structure, command and control systems, and operational paradigm. At its core, the reform aimed... MORE

Introduction: China’s (Junior) European Partners in the “16+1” On the heels of People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping’s busy bilateral tour in Western Europe in March, PRC Premier Li Keqiang started his own multilateral tour in Eastern Europe in April. Designed primarily to... MORE