In the first four months of 2022, Azerbaijan’s revenues from gas exports increased about 3.7 times and reached $4.18 billion (Marja, May 19). Revenues from oil exports, on the other hand, increased 50.3 percent in the same period. As a result, the positive balance of... MORE

Faced with mounting combat losses in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to expand the size of Russian forces there, the absence of a general mobilization plan undermines the Kremlin leader’s claims and could trigger more domestic opposition (Meduza, May 5). As such, Moscow... MORE

On July 2, Russian police detained Tahir Sozaev, head of the village Belaya Rechka in Kabardino-Balkaria. Sozaev is suspected of fomenting interethnic discord between the Balkars and other ethnic groups. In December 2021, the municipal official reportedly posted a controversial audio message in a village... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Four months into the biggest conventional war in Europe since World War II, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allies did not demonstrate a coherent strategy to deal with this war at... MORE

In-person polling in Belarus by opposition-minded sociologists has been considered taboo for quite some time. At the beginning of July 2022, the results of two national surveys, both using indirect polling techniques, were publicized: an online survey conducted in June 2022 by Ryhor Astapenia of... MORE

While Western economic sanctions are aggravating Russia`s business climate and leading toward its largest economic crisis since 1991, Russia is hoping to cope with the impending crisis by replacing vestiges of its market economy with command-style administrative regulations and a planned economy (Vedomosti.ru, July 3).... MORE

Given how centralized the Soviet Union was and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is today, the role regions within the Russian Federation have played in promoting Kremlin policies in neighboring countries is often overlooked. But in Soviet times, Moscow regularly employed regions and republics along the... MORE

On July 9, Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson announced that his country will return confiscated Nord Stream One turbines to Germany, providing Siemens with a temporary exemption from the existing sanctions regulations (La Presse, July 9). The equipment was seized by Canadian authorities,... MORE

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has clearly lost momentum, but the intensity of its multi-prong confrontation with the West keeps rising. Russian military command announced an “operational pause” in Donbas after the hard battles for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, implicitly admitting that a regrouping of battalions, which... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had blocked Ukraine’s membership track long before Russia’s 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine. The summit in Madrid (June 28–30) changed nothing in this respect. While the proverbial door remained open to Ukraine in... MORE