Contrary to expectations, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka ignored a personal invitation to participate in the November 24 Brussels summit of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) and sent his foreign minister instead. Lukashenka’s decision not to attend seems unusual at first glance. After all, following... MORE

Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey signed a new agreement dedicated to launching the Lapis Lazuli transit corridor during a pentalateral meeting at the seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), held on November 15, in Ashgabat (Azernews, November 15). The finalized document was... MORE

After gaining their independence a quarter century ago, all of the countries of the post-Soviet space have had to delimit their borders with each other. Most have had conflicts, but all but a few of those have since been resolved. One of the most serious... MORE

Sergei Rogov (69), pronounced earlier this month, “The crisis between Russia and the United States has reached the level equivalent to a new cold war. This Second Cold War [sic] is somewhat different from the first one, but the overall mode of confrontation and the... MORE

Like New York City, Russian diplomacy seemingly never sleeps. Last week, President Vladimir Putin conducted a series of mini summits in Sochi on consolidating a postwar order in Syria and about taking a giant step forward in Sudan. During Putin’s first meetings on Syria, on... MORE

The news that, on November 20, the US State Department had approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Georgia (Dsca.mil, November 20), caused euphoria in the South Caucasus country. Tbilisi is looking to buy from the Pentagon 410 of the missiles and 72 launch... MORE

In recent months, Russia has repeatedly used Belarus for provocations against Ukraine. The latest example was the arrest of Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sharoyko by the Belarusian KGB—an incident in which the hand of Moscow is clearly perceptible. The Sharyoko case, as well as a series... MORE

The Russian government is committed to ensuring that Belarus remains dependent on Moscow and serves as a buffer state between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Minskdialogue.by, November 17). But because Russia lacks the ability to win an honest competition for... MORE

The fall of the main Islamic State (IS) strongholds in Syria challenges Moscow to become more focused on the political process of conflict settlement. Nevertheless, recent diplomatic moves made by Moscow appear rather muddled at first glance. On the one hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin... MORE

The meeting of three presidents—Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani—in Sochi last Wednesday (November 22), was supposed to mark a triumph for Russian foreign policy. But instead, the trilateral summit sent confusing signals and left mixed feelings. A day before... MORE