Latest Articles about Foreign Policy
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Putin Ridicules US While Defending Russia’s Democracy, Human and Gay Rights Record
Last month, the White House canceled President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow in the first week of September for a summit with President Vladimir Putin because of mounting deadlock in bilateral relations and the Russian decision to grant fugitive United States National Security Agency (NSA)... MORE
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A Russian-Belarusian Friendship Thriller
On August 26, Vladislav Baumgaertner of Russia was arrested in Minsk and placed in the KGB prison popularly known as Amerikanka while criminal proceedings have been launched against him by the Belarusian Prosecutor’s Office. An ethnic German, born and raised in the Urals (www.comnarcon.com/index.php?id=454?), Baumgaertner... MORE
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Rogozin Threatens Moldova with Sanctions over Association Agreement with the European Union
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin visited Moldova on September 2–3, in his parallel capacities as President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy “on Transnistria” (“po Pridnestroviyu”) and as Russian co-chairman of the Russia-Moldova Inter-Governmental Economic Cooperation Commission. This visit had no other purpose than to threaten... MORE
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The Policy of Procrastination Expires at the Junction of Russia’s Crises
The end of summer has brought Russia to the intersection of several long-brewing crises that the authorities sought to mitigate by applying palliative half-measures and postponing hard decisions. In foreign affairs, the sharp escalation of the civil war in Syria has exposed the difficult consequences... MORE
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Moscow Seen ‘Losing’ Ukraine and Belarus Just as It Earlier ‘Lost’ the Baltic Countries
By pursuing the short-term profit goals of Russian oligarchs out of the conviction that this will promote Russia’s interest rather than considering the possible impact of such an approach on Russian national interests, Moscow is alienating Ukraine and Belarus, two Slavic neighbors it has long... MORE
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Sino-Mongolian Coal Relationship Continues Downward Spiral in 2013
The Mongolian Minister of Mining, Davaajav Gankhuyag, meeting with journalists in an August 9 press conference, confirmed the continuing decline in coal exports to China, Mongolia’s most important trade partner: “The slow speed of economic growth of Mongolia is caused by a drop in China’s... MORE
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Azerbaijan Earns Deferential Treatment from Moscow
Among the six countries in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program, Azerbaijan under its President Ilham Aliyev seems uniquely impervious to Russian forms of leverage and, consequently, unique in receiving respectful treatment from the Kremlin. These two factors are closely connected in Russian President Vladimir... MORE
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How Powerful is the Pro-Russian Lobby in Ukraine?
New initiatives supporting Russian economic and political objectives keep emerging in Ukraine as the date of the expected signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union at the November 28–29 EU Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius approaches. On August 9, the leader of the... MORE
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Azerbaijan, Russia Turning New Page on Cooperation in Energy Sector
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s working visit to Azerbaijan on August 13 (see EDM, April 14) resulted in several agreements of unprecedented scope in the oil and gas sector. Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Putin witnessed the agreements’ signing. These are documents of general intent, merely sketched... MORE
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The Sinking of the INS Sindhurakshak Strains Russo-Indian Military-Technical Cooperation
A series of explosions and a deadly fire ravaged the Kilo-type (project 877EKM or Varshavyanka) 3,000-ton submarine INS Sindhurakshak on August 14 as it was moored in Mumbai harbor and preparing to sail the next day, on August 15—India’s Independence Day. Eighteen sailors are feared... MORE