On April 16-17 Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister overseeing the arms industry, visited Chisinau and Tiraspol for the first time in his parallel capacities: Russian presidential envoy “for Transnistria” (po Pridnestrovyu) and chairman on the Russian side of the Russia-Moldova inter-governmental cooperation commission. Russia’s... MORE

Armenia has again ruled out the possibility of joining a Russian-led customs union, which Russia’s President-elect Vladimir Putin hopes could form the backbone of a future “Eurasian Union” of former Soviet republics remaining within Moscow’s orbit. Yerevan has made this clear in advance of free... MORE

Meeting with ambassadors on March 2, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev suggested that Central Asian states launch a common free trade zone, saying the region “enjoys a vast potential to be a global center” (tengrinews.kz, March 2). The initiative comes on the heels of an earlier... MORE

Since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in Syria more than a year ago, Western and Arab diplomats and journalists continue to ask the same question: When will Moscow abandon the seemingly doomed regime or put pressure on Damascus to stop the carnage that,... MORE

The Belarusian political commentator Andrei Fyodorov cast light on why the fight for democracy in Belarus, which the EU and the US have been waging non-stop since 1996, has never succeeded. According to Fyodorov, “the Belarusian society itself does not reveal a willingness to fight... MORE

In February 2012, Giorgi Baramidze, Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia and State Secretary for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, revealed that Ukraine is continuing to supply weapons to Georgia. “Moscow’s position is not upheld by practically the entire world community. And, thank God, that Ukraine also... MORE

The United States and its allies have undertaken a sustained effort since 2008 to develop sea, ground, and air transportation routes to Afghanistan’s north, through the territories of the former Soviet Union. This so-called Northern Distribution Network (NDN) now conveys large quantities of non-lethal supplies... MORE

The latest top-level meetings of post-Soviet regional groupings, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), pledged to intensify joint efforts to counter security and economic challenges. However, despite continued Russian efforts to sustain the groupings’ unity, the CIS and... MORE

A new round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries (United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia, China and Germany) engaged in diplomatic efforts with the Islamic Republic is scheduled to be held in Istanbul this weekend. As the meeting comes against the... MORE

President Hu Jintao joined 54 heads of state, deputy prime ministers and foreign ministers at the March 26-27 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul. The main objective of the summit was to secure, reduce and eliminate global stockpiles of nuclear and radiological materials to keep them... MORE