The next meeting of the Intergovernmental Council of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will be held in the central Russian city of Kazan, on April 29–30 (TASS, March 17). A key agenda item for the EEU member states may reportedly be to discuss the... MORE

Military tensions along the Russian-Ukrainian border reached a near-boiling point in recent weeks. During March–April, Moscow amassed as many as 110,000 troops and 56 permanent-readiness battalion tactical groups (BTG) close to eastern Ukrainian territory, according to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of... MORE

Russia is downscaling its buildup of military forces in Ukraine’s vicinity after three weeks of an elaborate war scare. The Russian pullback under way since April 22, however, is neither complete nor irreversible: a repeat buildup of forces around Ukraine is anticipated for September with... MORE

Two important and connected developments in the second half of April—military exercises in Crimea (RIA Novosti, April 22) and the wider growing tensions with Ukraine—cogently reiterated the military-political importance to Russia of this illegally annexed peninsula. Since 2014, Moscow has been heavily investing in building... MORE

Russia’s long-serving minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu, announced last week (April 22) that the Russian forces massed around Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders would withdraw between April 23 and May 1 (TASS, April 22; see EDM, April 22). Moscow had dubiously asserted that this massive... MORE

Many observers are treating Russia’s pullback of land forces from the Ukrainian border as the end of the crisis—even some of those experts who acknowledge the Kremlin has not given up its aggressive posturing against Ukraine (Voennoe Obozrenie, April 25). Yet that belligerent stance may... MORE

Introduction The idea of “New Concept Weapons” (NCW, 新概念武器, xin gainian wuqi) is not new. In the parlance of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), NCW was once almost a synonym for directed energy weapons (DEW) programs, with roots dating back to the 1960s.[1] In recent... MORE

In advance of Russia’s assumption of the two-year rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council in May, Moscow is calling on the United Nations to approve its claims to even more of the Arctic seabed, including territories also claimed by Denmark and Canada. Furthermore, President Vladimir... MORE

President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address to a joint session of both houses of parliament on April 21, in the historical Moscow Manege hall, adjacent to the Kremlin, with the entire Russian ruling political, bureaucratic and business elite present. The yearly presidential address was... MORE

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has confirmed plans to create the country’s first robotic military unit. These plans draw on existing research and development (R&D) within the domestic defense industry, which has made advances in the field of applying artificial intelligence (AI) for military purposes... MORE