China’s European Satellite Launch Sets New Milestones On October 7, a Chinese Long March-3 rocket blasted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province, delivering a French Eutelsat communications satellite into orbit. This marked the first Chinese launch of a Western communications satellite since the... MORE

The regime of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been put under serious pressure in recent days. On September 29-30, a European Union summit in Warsaw condemned Belarus’ human rights record and demanded the immediate release and full pardon of all political prisoners, most of which... MORE

For almost eight years, Russia has not allowed OSCE’s election-observation agency, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), to observe parliamentary and presidential elections in that country. Russia’s next elections are scheduled to be held on December 4, 2011 for the Duma, and... MORE

Turkey’s decision to host a NATO early warning radar in the US-led missile defense program continues to reverberate, especially for its relations with Iran. High ranking Iranian officials repeatedly criticize not only Turkey’s cooperation with the United States on the missile shield, but also Ankara’s... MORE

The September 29-30, Eastern Partnership summit in Warsaw was another typically EU empty diplomatic soirée. The Viktor Yanukovych administration has ignored Western criticism of political repression and the EU has put all its eggs into the Ukraine basket to show success in the Eastern Partnership,... MORE

Russia’s prime minister and president-in-waiting, Vladimir Putin, has published a lengthy manifesto on integrating the “post-Soviet space” economically around Russia (“New Integration Project for Eurasia: The Future Is Being Born Today,” Izvestiya, October 4). The publication’s immediate context is electoral, but the implementation is already... MORE

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir is yet to win the presidency formally next year, but he has already laid out ambitious foreign policy plans in regard to former Soviet states, Russia’s “traditional sphere of influence,” as the Kremlin often defines it. In his recent op-ed piece... MORE

This week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – the ruling United Russia party’s official candidate for reelection as president for a third six-year term next March – published a major policy article in the Izvestiya daily. Putin announced a long-term strategy to build a Eurasian superstate... MORE

The Pechersky District court in Kyiv on September 30 adjourned the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko until the week starting October 10, when a verdict should be delivered. This may become the turning point in Kyiv’s relations with the West. Tymoshenko faces... MORE

As Moscow reiterated its promises to write-off much of Pyongyang’s Soviet-era debt, Russia once again tried to offer Kim Jong-Il some economic carrots in an apparent bid to play a bigger role in international efforts to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.Russia’s renewed efforts to... MORE