The Russian government has announced the imminent suspension of the Free Trade Regime between the Russian Federation and Georgia, which had been in place since 1994, following Georgia’s accession to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Civil Georgia, July 31). Moscow established the same regime... MORE

In the wake of the newest sanctions on Russia by the European Union and the United States, Washington is seeking to persuade its Asian allies, Japan and South Korea, to follow suit (Yonhap July 31; Korea Times Online, July 29). While South Korea has hesitated... MORE

With the implementation of new Western sanctions against Russia as a result of the continued instability in eastern Ukraine, the other post-Soviet countries are closely monitoring foreign policy developments inside the United States. The rapidly cooling relations between Washington and Moscow were most recently borne... MORE

Bad news hit the Kremlin thick and fast last week, but on Friday evening (August 1), President Vladimir Putin answered a phone call from US President Barack Obama, who again stressed that the Kremlin’s mounting problems can be resolved diplomatically (whitehouse.gov, August 1). Putin’s personal... MORE

On July 21, eleven days after a recent skirmish between Tajik and Kyrgyz communities and border guards in the Ferghana Valley, Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdyrakhman Mamataliev commented on the progress of his country’s delimitation talks with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, stating that demarcation issues would... MORE

The geopolitical perspective that Belarus is being squeezed between Russia and the European Union remains relevant. New information continues to reveal modest but noticeable attempts to improve Belarus’s relations with the West (see EDM, July 23) as well as the ambivalent role of Russia, Belarus’s... MORE

This week, the United States and the European Union imposed long-awaited and feared punitive economic sanctions aimed at sectors of the Russian economy and designed to change President Vladimir Putin’s policies on Ukraine. But in Moscow, they are seen as lopsided and largely ineffective. The... MORE

President Xi Jinping of China proposed a new Asian security concept on May 21, 2014 at the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). He called on Asian countries to pursue “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” based on... MORE

A series of seemingly unprovoked actions in the South and East China Sea has been described as an abandonment of the “second charm offensive” launched last year by Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, China has continued to pursue economic and diplomatic cooperation with its Southeast... MORE

From early 2013 through the present, high level Chinese officials have consistently used the phrase “under the new situation” (zai xin xingshi xia) when discussing strategic concerns such as military reform, readiness and foreign affairs. The phrase refers to a critical reassessment of the international... MORE