Introduction On December 7, 2019, infantry units of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commenced the “Hand-in-Hand 2019” combined military exercise at Umroi in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya. The fortnight-long exercise ran through December 20, and focused on counter-terrorism... MORE

Bilateral Ukrainian-Turkish cooperation in the defense sector continues unabated even after the consequential 2019 elections in both countries. On January 23, the Joint Ukrainian-Turkish Commission on Defense-Industrial Cooperation met again, in Kyiv (Ukrainian Government, January 23). This time, the Turkish delegation was headed by the... MORE

According to numerous analyses published by think tanks and journals in the United States and Europe, Russia lost its African adventure before it even started. Purportedly, Russia lacks the resources with which to compete in Africa against the United States and China, acts there in... MORE

Russia’s political-military leadership has a long standing fear of a sudden air attack on the country, which still permeates strategic thinking and planning. Drawing upon lessons based on analyses of air operations carried out by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),... MORE

The message from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to his Norwegian counterpart, Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Spitsbergen Treaty was rude even by the standards of Russian diplomacy. Russia has, on several previous occasions, signaled disagreements with... MORE

Russia’s long-serving minister of defense, Army General Sergei Shoigu, recently survived the government reshuffle that accompanied President Vladimir Putin’s decision to change the constitution of the Russian Federation (see EDM, January 16). In many ways, Shoigu’s survival in the new cabinet came as little surprise... MORE

Since the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s relations with its immediate Black Sea neighbors—the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine—have veered from frigid to open conflict. Russia engaged in a brief war in 2008 with Georgia; then, six years later,... MORE

At a summit in Istanbul, on January 8, 2020—an event officially earmarked to celebrate the beginning of exploitation of the TurkStream natural gas pipeline—Russian President Vladimir Putin and his host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sat down together to work out ceasefire agreements regarding Libya... MORE

Throughout 2019, insurgent activities in the North Caucasus continued to plummet. According to preliminary data, based on multiple reports published by Kavkazsky Uzel over the past year, 46 people were directly affected by rebel-related violence in the region, of whom 32 were killed and 14... MORE

Russia’s political-military leadership frequently criticizes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its enlargement and for staging military exercises close to Russian borders. This pattern has intensified since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent downturn in its relations with the United States... MORE