The Georgian opposition staged a rally, on December 2, in the center of the capital city of Tbilisi, protesting the outcome of last month’s presidential election. Demonstrators called for annulling the results of the vote as well as demanded early parliamentary elections (Agenda.ge, December 2).... MORE

Russia has staged “republic“-level “elections” in Donetsk and Luhansk for the second time in four years, establishing a regular quadrennial electoral cycle there. This move is designed to perpetuate the “republics” de facto, institutionalizing them more firmly and exploiting a murky situation of undefined status... MORE

The deadly October 31 bombing of a local Federal Security Services (FSB) office in Arkhangelsk by 17-year-old student Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a member of an online anarchist community (Meduza.io, October 31; Crimerussia.com, November 1), underscored two serious threats facing the Russian authorities. First, the bomber’s identity... MORE

On October 25, the 82nd (and largest to date) humanitarian convoy organized by Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS) delivered 700 tons of humanitarian aid to “the residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts” (RIA Novosti, October 25). These provinces make up Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas... MORE

Russia is continuing to implement its “boa constrictor strategy” in the Sea of Azov, aimed at strangling the economy of Ukraine’s littoral areas (see EDM, February 22, April 12, May 22, 31, June 11, 28). The overall situation has sharpened since this spring, when the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The infamous affair involving a Russian “patriotic” youth camp in Zlatibor, Serbia, which was shut down by the local police in August 2018, highlighted Moscow’s growing attempts to spread its “Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”) ideology to other countries... MORE

The decision of Universal Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I to move toward granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (see EDM, September 13) is an existential threat to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his conception of a “Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”). For one thing, the... MORE

Throughout 2017, Australia and New Zealand were roiled by controversies surrounding alleged attempts by pro-Beijing lobbying groups to influence government policies. In Australia, one of the foremost figures at the center of these controversies has been Huang Xiangmo. Huang, who first became wealthy as a... MORE

From one perspective, China has enormous “soft power” in Central Asia, the ability, as Joseph Nye defined it (Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, New York, 1990), “to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion.” It can and... MORE

Lost in the sea of political rhetoric and policies laid out during the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th Congress in October were references to United Front Work—an important group of policies that the CCP uses to forge consensus at home and exert influence abroad (Xinhua,... MORE