Mustafa Cemilev, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and leader of the Crimean Tatar movement, says that Kyiv will seek membership in the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC—formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference), a move that could help Ukraine rally support in the... MORE

The agreement to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis, signed at a meeting last week in Geneva by top foreign policy executives of Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, failed to decrease tensions and prevent further escalation (see EDM, April 17). The armed pro-Russian... MORE

The last stop of US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on his ten-day trip to Hawaii and Asia was to landlocked Mongolia. His short visit on April 10 featured charming photo-ops of his unique gift from the Mongolian government—a buff-colored horse that he named “Shamrock.”... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit China for a summit in May. In advance of that meeting, Russian sources are again claiming that an agreement on a gas pipeline will be reached between Gazprom and its Chinese partners. Allegedly, both sides have agreed... MORE

The Ukrainian crisis and Russia’s annexation of Crimea have focused the attention of all the post-Soviet states. But especially concerned have been all the countries in the region that have their own internal unresolved conflicts as well as those neighboring states that maintain relations with... MORE

The Ukrainian crisis and the “reunification” of Crimea with the rest of Russia dominated President Vladimir Putin’s almost four-hour-long televised national phone-in—an annual PR performance that had been previously dominated by discussion of pensions, utility payments, inflation, wages and other internal “bread and butter” issues.... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka gave an interview to the Russian TV channel NTV on April 13. In it, he assigned most of the blame for the current crisis in Ukraine to its previous government—specifically, to its lack of attention to the Ukrainian economy and to combatting... MORE

On April 4, Russia’s State Duma passed a law that simplifies the process of acquiring Russian citizenship. The new legislation enables people to obtain a Russian passport if they speak Russian and their immediate ancestors lived on the territory of the Russian Federation, Russian Empire... MORE

Inevitably, Russia is trying to regain the initiative in the Ukrainian crisis by applying the most powerful instrument of its foreign policy—the export of natural gas to Europe. Last Thursday (April, 10), President Vladimir Putin sent a letter to the leaders of the 18 European... MORE

The government of Turkmenistan has begun mobilizing the country’s army reservists and has sent them to the border with Afghanistan. At least a few dozen reservists were deployed to the town of Serhetabad, (formerly known as Kushka) on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border. The border situation worsened... MORE