Official Russian discourse on the status of relations with China is as upbeat as it can possibly be. Andrei Denisov, the long-serving ambassador to Beijing, claims that the two countries are enjoying the best period ever in the history of their partnership (Russiancouncil.ru, March 3).... MORE

Newly elected Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili made her first regional visit to the neighboring country of Azerbaijan. Her trip was of critical importance in terms of both bilateral relations and wider geopolitical developments in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Zourabichvili’s arrival in Baku, on February 27,... MORE

The Russian Academy of Military Sciences held its annual defense conference on March 2. The theme this year covered future wars, armed conflicts and the challenges facing the defense sector. The president of the Academy, Army General (ret.) Makhmut Gareev, provided the opening speech. However,... MORE

The first three months of 2019 already saw a series of positive developments in the normalization of relations between Belarus and the European Union. Yet, the process remains not only slow, but also contradictory. This is one of the conclusions that came out of a... MORE

New natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean might be a boon for the European Union’s efforts to move away from dependence on Russian energy supplies. In the current complex energy game between Europe and Russia, Italy could play an important role as an entry... MORE

China is rapidly expanding its presence and control in Russia’s Trans-Baikal region. This drive is, in part, being driven by Beijing’s economic interests in Siberia and the Russian Far East as a whole. However, perhaps even more importantly, the trend is buttressed by the fact... MORE

Late 2018 to early 2019 was marked by a number of positive developments as peace talks intensified between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding the Karabakh conflict. Last December, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev tweeted that “the year 2019 will give a new impetus” to the conflict settlement... MORE

Belarus’s ongoing drive to cautiously normalize relations with the West has raised concerns from Russian military intelligence, commonly known as the GRU, that Moscow is losing its influence over Minsk (see EDM, February 22). In response, some Russian think tanks have taken the initiative and... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament adopted several symbolic amendments to the Constitution, on February 7. The amendments, which President Petro Poroshenko signed into law on February 19, aim to make Ukraine’s strategic course toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union irreversible (Ukrinform.net, February... MORE

Currently, Moscow has 21 military bases abroad, but only a handful are beyond the borders of the former Soviet space and none is equivalent to the size and capacity of the more than 200 bases the United States maintains around the world. But given President... MORE