The two-year contract between the government of Georgia and the Russian energy giant Gazprom on natural gas transit from Russia to Armenia expired on December 31, 2018 (Georgia Today, January 21, 2019). And talks are now ongoing about extending or renegotiating this arrangement. Tbilisi and... MORE

Amidst the New Year’s celebrations and political tumult in Ulaanbaatar (South China Morning Post, December 6, 2018), Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming published a long seasonal greeting in the Mongolian media (Montsame, December 21, 2018). His message to the landlocked, Northeast Asian host country on the... MORE

Russian-Belarusian tensions are still a major topic of discussion in the Belarusian media. Artyom Shraibman of Tut.by, notably predicts that neither side will yield to the other; therefore, Belarus will have to cope with slower economic growth and look for financial aid elsewhere (Tut.by, January... MORE

Foreign affairs have yielded few successes and much chagrin for Russia since the start of 2019 (see EDM, January 14, 2019). Relations with the United States are going from bad to worse, as the inevitable collapse of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signifies... MORE

Mass anti-government protests that erupted this month in major Venezuelan cities apparently already claimed the lives of at least 29 protestors. The country’s embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, has defined the events as “an attempt at forceful regime change organized by American imperialism” (Rosbalt, January 26,... MORE

  Moscow has long celebrated that Russian enjoys a higher official status and greater respect in Kyrgyzstan that in any other Central Asian country. That situation is symbolized by the fact that the current president, Sooronbay Zheenbekov, is a former Russian-language teacher. But it is... MORE

Like smoke with little fire, there has been a lot of anxiety surrounding the current Belarusian-Russian tensions (see EDM, January 15, 2019). Prolonged agitation, however, clouds judgment. At the end of the day, policymakers will benefit from a more sober reading of the subject in... MORE

On January 21, in Brussels, Russia and Ukraine held ministerial-level talks on the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine (TASS, January 22, 2019). The European Commission is chairing this process, and the ministerial meeting just held in Brussels was the second at... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems actually keen for German and French observers to arrive as soon as possible at the Kerch Strait—albeit on Russian-defined ground rules. Following the November 25, 2018, assault on Ukrainian naval ships,... MORE

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe arrived in Moscow for another summit with President Vladimir Putin, on January 22. Abe and Putin have been meeting regularly during the last year in an attempt to drastically improve relations. Both Moscow and Tokyo continue to express hope a... MORE