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

Georgia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019—a computer assisted/command post exercise (CAX/CPX)—at the Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC), between March 18 and 29. The NATO-Georgian JTEC facility is based at the Krtsanisi National Training Center, near Tbilisi. This year’s... MORE

The presidential elections in Ukraine last Sunday (March 31) were derided, denigrated and ridiculed by Russian propaganda, but they still marked a striking contrast with the severely controlled politics in Russia. In an odd historical coincidence, the last meaningful and even fateful elections Russia saw... MORE

A Russian task force of some 100 men has landed in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, arriving on two military planes—a super-large Antonov An-124 military transporter and an aging long-range Il-62M passenger jet, also belonging to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Both jets took off from... MORE

While Belarus’s self-awareness is generally on the rise (see EDM, March 19), it never stops being influenced by a wide spectrum of domestic and international affairs. Thus, a tussle between the Russian ambassador to Minsk and the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) continues to... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree, on March 16, pardoning 51 persons, who were described as “political prisoners” by international organizations and human rights watchdogs. Although pardons in Azerbaijan are not inherently unusual, the numerical scale of the collective pardon in this case was... MORE

Recurrent tensions have long been inherent in Belarusian-Russian relations. Yet, the ongoing diplomatic spat, escalating since the summer of 2018, looks increasingly different from past disagreements. Not only are Minsk and Moscow now essentially disputing the fundamentals of their relationship (see EDM, January 15), but... MORE