Author’s note: This article was informed by research and analysis on the PRC’s Beidou satellite program conducted by Pointe Bello, a strategic intelligence and advisory firm. Introduction On June 23, a Long March-3B carrier rocket was successfully launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in... MORE

Introduction On the night of June 15, a violent clash occurred in the Galwan Valley between soldiers of the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese troops (India Today,... MORE

Introduction On June 15, People’s Republic of China (PRC) Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng (乐玉成) held consultations via video with Turkmenistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiyev. During the meeting, two main topics were discussed: the first was reaffirming the strategic nature of bilateral ties between... MORE

On July 12, the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan escalated into a major military confrontation along the state border straddling Azerbaijan’s Tovuz and Armenia’s Tavush regions (Jam-news, July 12). The clashes, involving heavy artillery as well as aerial drones, resulted in the deaths of... MORE

On July 6, the Russian shipbuilding complex Zvezda, LLC started construction on a Project 10510 (Lider) icebreaker. Upon its completion (scheduled for 2027), the first ship of this class, named the Rossiya and commissioned by the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation (Rosatom), will become the... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political “triumph” in securing approval for the set of amendments to the constitution in a public vote on July 1 (see EDM, July 2) has brought neither cheerful celebrations nor benevolent rewards to loyal subjects. Instead, the government has begun meting... MORE

Another critic of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow ruler Ramzan Kadyrov was killed in Austria. On the evening of July 4, the man was shot in the head and died in a parking lot next to a shopping center in the Vienna suburb of Gerasdorf. Initially, reports said... MORE

The Russian government continues to deny news accounts that its security forces paid the Taliban to kill members of the United States Armed Forces stationed in Afghanistan; but at the same time, Moscow has exploited these reports at home to generate support for the Kremlin.... MORE

China and Uzbekistan have opened a new transport corridor between one other, which could eventually form a key link in a much shorter inter-continental route connecting China to the Middle East and Europe. Tashkent trusts that the new corridor complements rather than competes with already-established... MORE

On June 9, Russian parliamentarian Viktor Vodolatskiy declared that this year, 600,000–800,000 inhabitants of the unrecognized “republics” on the occupied territory of Ukrainian Donbas will receive Russian citizenship (TASS, June 9). Vodolatskiy is the first deputy chairperson of the State Duma Committee on CIS (Commonwealth... MORE