A little more than a year after a French and African Union military intervention drove an Islamist coalition from their bases in northern Mali in early 2013, Prime Minister Moussa Mara ignited the seething tensions in the area with an ill-advised visit to the Kidal... MORE

A fragile ceasefire is partially holding in Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing Donetsk and Luhansk provinces). Massive offensive operations have ceased and some heavy weapons have been withdrawn from the front line. But the truce is constantly broken by gun battles and bombardments. The Organization... MORE

On March 30, Irina Vlah was officially declared the winner of the election for the post of Bashkhan (head of the executive authority) in Moldova’s Gagauz Autonomous Territorial Unit (Gagauz Yeri). As now confirmed, Vlah won the election in the first round on March 22,... MORE

On March 26, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili declared that he was postponing his state visit to Ukraine because he was too busy dealing with Georgia’s domestic affairs. Garibashvili took pains to emphasize that the postponement of his visit was not due to his unhappiness... MORE

The Kremlin press service announced last week that President Vladimir Putin would not celebrate the 15th anniversary of his first election, which occurred on March 26, 2000 (RBC.ru, March 26). Indeed, many murky circumstances cloud his improbable arrival to the summit of power as Boris... MORE

On March 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while on a visit to Astana, Kazakhstan, said that Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—the three main founding members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and formerly Eurasian Customs Union—should consider creating a monetary union. As Putin argued, “working shoulder... MORE

Recently, there has been an uptick in Russian efforts to defend the placement of nuclear-capable weapons, if not actual nuclear weapons, on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed one year ago. Notably, TU-22M3 long-range bombers, which would be able to carry and deliver such... MORE

Last week (March 19), speaking at an annual conference of the Union of Russian Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP)—Russia’s main business lobbying group—President Vladimir Putin promoted a previously announced financial amnesty. Putin implied that Russia’s super-rich must repatriate their capital back from abroad and out of... MORE

European Union officials hope that among the outcomes of the upcoming May 2015 Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit in Riga will be a new and more flexible cooperation framework for redefining the EU’s relations with Armenia and other neighboring countries. Indeed, Latvia, which currently holds the... MORE