Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) jets have been hitting Syria intermittently, primarily targeting Iranian-connected assets, but also attacking the air-defense installations of president Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA) (Haaretz, April 10). Officially, the Israelis proclaim neutrality in the seven-year-long Syrian civil war, but the IDF... MORE

In recent years, Ukraine has been fostering a national ideology that has significantly impacted the quality of relations with its western neighbors, notably Poland and Hungary. Ukrainian national ideology, on the one hand, helps it to effectively resist Russian aggression; but on the other hand,... MORE

Undoubtedly, Russia’s planned construction of new offshore natural gas pipelines, namely Nord Stream Two and Turk Stream, represents an important element in Moscow’s struggle for domination of the European gas market (see EDM, April 11). However, the development and launch of these pipelines also carries... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   On March 28, Russian media presented information that members of the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner may have been spotted in the East Ghouta region (southwestern Syria), coordinating a “normalization of the post-war situation.” The same sources... MORE

The Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of National Defense published its annual report, the “National Threat Assessment 2018,” on March 26 (Vsd.lt, March 26). This year, Lithuania is celebrating its centenary of independence. And since during the last century, the country was only truly... MORE

Many Western analysts have focused on the ways Moscow is seeking to use ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the former Soviet republics to expand the Kremlin’s influence—both by actually destabilizing these countries or simply raising the specter that it could repeat there what it has... MORE

On March 27, the Russian government watered down the Duma bill proposing to legalize Private Military Companies (Chastnye Voennie Company—PMC) (Interfax, March 27). The parliamentary initiative was unanimously rejected by the Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Russian National Guard... MORE

The April 14 coordinated missile attack by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, targeting Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities, has been met in Moscow with a bout of acute anti-US anger mixed with proclamations of utter Western military failure and ineptitude. The Russian... MORE

Russia’s shipbuilding program for 2011–2020, under which the country plans to build over 100 new warships (Military Paritet, February 7, 2012), is reportedly causing “a very bad feeling” among some Russian naval experts (Topwar.ru, August 10, 2016). They describe the current status of the Russian... MORE

On April 12—on the eve of the United States’ and its allies’ airstrikes against Syria in response to the recent chemical attack in Douma—Russian foreign ministry press secretary Maria Zakharova stated that the US, through programs financed by the Pentagon, is creating a network of... MORE