Introduction On December 12, members of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) attacked a local hotel in Kabul, where several Chinese nationals were staying. The attack injured five Chinese nationals along with 18 other victims, while the three attackers were killed by security forces (China... MORE

Located between the Black Sea and the Dnipro-Bug estuary, the Kinburn Spit is a natural 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) formation in Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine. It occupies the westernmost part of the Kinburn Peninsula, and, being located on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro River, is only... MORE

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev’s recent tirade against the West, as well as his insistence that Western governments are the tools of major capitalist groups and that the West wants to reduce Russia to the size of 15th-century Muscovy has attracted enormous attention as... MORE

Combat operations in Ukraine have largely contracted to a 10-mile battleground between Bakhmut and Soledar. During this fierce fighting, the command structure of Russia’s “special military operation” was suddenly upgraded on January 11. General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, is now... MORE

According to multiple reports, Russia is recruiting Afghan security personnel, who were previously trained by the United States, for its war effort against Ukraine. The former Afghan elite commandos and soldiers are reportedly joining the Russian private military company known as the Wagner Group, a... MORE

The final deficit of the Russian federal budget for 2022 appeared to be 3.35 trillion rubles, almost $48.8 billion according to the average exchange rate during the year. Although, the ruble became a partially convertible currency after the beginning of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, and... MORE

Since gaining independence in 1991, Turkmenistan has typically attracted only sporadic international attention both because of its constitutionally mandated policy of strict neutrality and the extreme isolation Ashgabat has pursued with an authoritarianism so severe that it rivals that of North Korea. But the country’s... MORE

As its war against Ukraine drags on, Russia continues to press ahead with its nuclear modernization program. In 2022, Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) were ordered to deploy 21 launchers armed with Yars and Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and an Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle... MORE

The ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine has created many changes in Russian society, one of which is the continued expansion of the Cossack movement. Two recent changes highlight this process: First, the creation of a new Cossack host (voiska) in Russia looks to be on the... MORE

On December 29, the Belarusian state media reported that an S-300 surface-to-air missile launched by Ukrainian forces had dropped into Belarus, near the village of Horbakha, about 50 kilometers from the shared border with Ukraine (Belta, December 29, 2022). Later, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense... MORE