The 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which convened on June 6–8, was, as every year, pronounced a huge success by the Russian authoriti­es. Certainly, the 19,000 participants from 145 countries and the 3.1 trillion rubles’ ($49 billion) worth of contracts announced marked new records... MORE

Recent developments around the construction of a new deep-water port in Anaklia, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, have reinforced skepticism that the “project of the century” (as it has come to be known domestically) will ever be able to attract sufficient foreign investment and become... MORE

To buttress the country’s flagging economy, Moscow has counted on the Russian Federation being the primary transit route for Chinese goods being shipped to Europe. However, Beijing’s commitment to becoming the dominant player on the Northern Sea Route (The Barents Observer, June 7) as well... MORE

On May 6, Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian representatives met in Ankara and issued a joint memorandum on significantly transforming the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway project. The Georgian leadership made clear that it was dissatisfied with the trilateral proposal, which was signed without Tbilisi’s consent (see EDM,... MORE

On April 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev arrived in China to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (Report.az, April 24). This was Aliyev’s second official visit to the world’s most populous country, since 2015. In light of growing Chinese involvement in... MORE

Moscow wants to have it both ways on the Montreux Convention, which governs naval passage through the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), casting itself as a supporter of this agreement when it works to its advantage but at the same time ignoring and... MORE

Russia surprised many last year when it used its internal canal system to shift military vessels from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov in order to ramp up pressure on Ukraine (see EDM, May 31, 2018; November 27, 2018). But in fact, river... MORE

China’s Touchstone Capital Partners is ready to invest up to 15 billion euros ($16.9 billion) in the construction of an undersea tunnel linking Finland and Estonia, according to Finnish backers of the project (Helsingin Sanomat, March 8). Such an injection of funds could mean that... MORE

Newly elected Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili made her first regional visit to the neighboring country of Azerbaijan. Her trip was of critical importance in terms of both bilateral relations and wider geopolitical developments in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Zourabichvili’s arrival in Baku, on February 27,... MORE

One of Vladimir Putin’s earliest proposed mega-projects—first announced on September 12, 2000—calls for the creation of a North-South transportation corridor linking Russia with the Caspian littoral states, including Iran, as well as India and Sri Lanka. Such a transit network would permit these countries to... MORE