The Cyprus issue has dominated political debates and intrigues in Moscow through last week, turning into a test of sorts for Russia’s ability to respond to acute external challenges. The financial disaster on the island that has become so intimately familiar to many Russians has... MORE

On March 17, accompanied by an 80-member delegation, including many directors of state-run companies, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka left for a seven-day visit to Indonesia and Singapore (https://www.svaboda.org/content/article/24931615.html). On March 18, he reported signing export contracts worth $400 million in Jakarta (https://www.gazetaby.com/cont/art.php?sn_nid=54868). Two days prior... MORE

Objectively, the Georgian Dream government is a legatee of the Mikheil Saakashvili government’s trademark foreign policy. National interests require the new government to build on the legacy of its predecessor.On March 16, at the German Marshall Fund’s (GMF) annual Brussels Forum, Georgian Defense Minister Irakli... MORE

The Cypriot financial meltdown has rocked Moscow. Russia provided Cyprus in 2011 with a 2.5 billion-euro ($3.2 billion) low interest loan and believed the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should join in the bailout of a euro-zone member nation. Until now, the... MORE

Mongolian Minister of Defense Dashdemberel Bat-Erdene led a Mongolian military delegation to Moscow on February 17–21 for discussions that included preparations for their annual joint exercises. Included on the agenda was a visit to the 5th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Western Military District... MORE

The appearance of a detachment of Russian Cossacks in Moldova’s Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia has not only unsettled some residents there but also spotlights Moscow’s efforts to use the Christian Turkic Gagauz people—alongside Transnistria—against the Moldovan government in Chisinau. The Cossacks’ presence incites a... MORE

The Barack Obama administration declared victory for the “democratic process” in Georgia immediately after that country’s October 1, 2012, parliamentary elections. It defined that victory narrowly as an “orderly transfer of power” from the incumbent government to the election-winning opposition. This would in turn guarantee... MORE

Following his recent visit to Brussels, the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, told the Russian press that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had been ignoring all attempts to establish a permanent dialogue on security issues common to both... MORE

The Barack Obama administration publicly called for an “orderly transfer of power” during Georgia’s electoral campaign. President Obama first gave this message, publicly and (still more explicitly) privately, to the visiting Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili as early as January 2012 in Washington. “Orderly transfer of... MORE

Although the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula has been drawing most international attention, from the perspective of Central Asia, another interesting question is whether the new South Korean government will pursue as vigorous a Central Asian strategy as its predecessor. Under President Lee... MORE