Latest Articles about Foreign Policy

Russia’s New Moldovan Favorite: Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party

Lacking mainstream political partners in Europe’s East, the Kremlin has recently picked the small, far-left Party of Socialists to advance Russia’s objectives in Moldova. The main objective is to undermine the pro-Western leadership team in Moldova, the European Union’s closest partner in the region. The... MORE

Putin Calls for National Unity to Defeat US-Led Foes

On December 4, President Vladimir Putin addressed a joint session of Russia’s houses of parliament in the Kremlin. This annual address is the Russian equivalent of the State of the Union speech delivered annually by the President of the United States, and it is mandated... MORE

New Trade War Erupts Between Russia and Belarus

“We are beginning the new year without any problems whatsoever, even small ones, in our relations as we have settled them all,” President Alyaksandr Lukashenka observed as recently as November 18, while receiving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Svaboda, November 28). Yet, barely nine days... MORE

Russian-Abkhaz Agreement: What Is Moscow’s Plan for Georgia?

Georgian authorities are trying to devise new tactics and a new style of relations with Moscow after the November 24 signing of the Russian-Abkhazian agreement On Alliance and Strategic Partnership (Kavkavsky Uzel, November 24; see EDM, October 29, November 24). However, with Western leaders currently... MORE

Belarus Tries to Flap Its ‘Second Wing’

“We have been flying with one wing and we badly need to engage the other one,” President Alyaksandr Lukashenka once quipped, in reference to Belarus’s asymmetric international engagements—too much with Russia, too little with the West. The imbalance, of course, is still there and so... MORE

Looming Annexations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Russia’s Growing Appetite for Territorial Expansion

On November 20, Russian-occupied South Ossetia’s (Tskhinvali region) separatist regime declared that it is negotiating a new “comprehensive agreement on integration” with Russia, which will raise the relationship between the two sides to a “qualitatively new level,” especially in the military sphere (regnum.ru, November 20).... MORE