The Russian minister of defense, Army General Sergei Shoigu, and his first deputy, the chief of the General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov, took over the country’s Armed Forces in November 2012. Shoigu, a civilian construction engineer with no military background, had served for over... MORE

Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced at the end of August that one of the main tasks of the Russian Armed Forces is the protection of the country’s national interests in the Arctic region. The frozen High North has “high conflict potential,” Shoigu asserted,... MORE

  *To read Part One, please click here. The unexplained assassination of the Donetsk “People’s Republic” leader, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, on August 31 (see Part One) provoked a factional commotion in Donetsk. The Kremlin had to intervene openly from September 5 onward to stabilize the political... MORE

The leader of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR), Aleksandr Zakharchenko, was assassinated by a bomb blast on August 31, after almost four years of continuous service to the Russian occupation in three capacities simultaneously: “head of the republic” (“glava respubliki”), head of the “council of... MORE

Despite the hopes and expectations of China, Europe and the United States, Russia does not view the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as primarily an economic channel linking Asian and European markets. Rather, for Moscow, it is a component of its projection of control over a... MORE

Ahead of Vostok 2018, being held on September 11–17, Russia’s senior military leadership has actively promoted the scale and importance of this strategic-level exercise, particularly referencing the first ever participation of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces in these drills (see EDM, September 5). The... MORE

In an interview last month (August 16) with the media outlet Azeri Daily, Azerbaijani member of parliament and the head of the Azerbaijan-Russia inter-parliamentary group, Ali Huseynli, suggested that, considering the changed geopolitical conditions in the South Caucasus, “it would be possible [he later also... MORE

The annual Russia-hosted Eastern Economic Forum is about to open (September 11–13) in Vladivostok, and President Vladimir Putin has arrived there to greet the leaders of China, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea. This carefully prepared ceremony should provide relief for him from the mounting tensions... MORE

On August 30, five young Georgian citizens, detained by Russian service members for “illegally crossing the state border of South Ossetia,” were released from a Tskhinvali jail after having paid a fine of 2,000 Russian rubles ($29.61) (Civil Georgia, August 31). The youths had been... MORE

The war in Ukraine’s east was the topic that Merkel placed at the top of her remarks at the August 18 Berlin-Meseberg meeting with Putin (see Part One). Putin relegated this topic to the end of his remarks, as if to confirm Russia’s current tactic... MORE