After Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili met with his Armenian counterpart, Karen Karapetyan, in Tbilisi, on February 23–24, the initial reports in the Georgian media were vague. Kvirikashvili provided general statements on the meeting’s purpose: “Armenia is a country with which we share centuries-old good-neighborly... MORE

On February 1, Russian and then Belarusian media reported some unexpected news: Moscow decided to set up a border zone between its Smolensk, Bryansk and Pskov regions and Belarus (RIA Novosti, February 1). The decision was met with an immediate negative reaction in Minsk, where... MORE

Though still two years away, the presidential elections in Russia are already on the minds of the political elite in Moscow. The sitting head of state, President Vladimir Putin, is constitutionally permitted to run again in 2018. And though most expect that he will, his... MORE

Earlier this month (October 2016), the governments of the Baltic States and Poland finally reached all the necessary political, financial and technical agreements to implement one of the most ambitious projects inside the European Union—linking Finland, the Baltic States and Poland with the unified Trans-European... MORE

October 2016 marks the centennial of the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad (Trans-Sib), Russia and the world’s longest railroad line. Yet, no special celebrations are planned—in part due to Russia’s current economic difficulties, but also because that fabled railroad may be reaching the end of... MORE

The doping scandal, which may exclude Russian athletes from this summer’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics, is dominating the political news in Moscow at the moment. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) executive board has called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban all Russian athletes... MORE

Perhaps the most important geopolitical development of mid-July 2016 was not the continuing conflict in the South China Sea, the failed coup in Turkey, or terrorist violence in France—all of which attracted considerable international attention—but rather the quiet signing, in Moscow, of an agreement by... MORE

On June 23, the Terek River flooded and destroyed part of the Georgian Military Highway (Voyenno-Gruzinskaya doroga). The highway, which connects Russia to Georgia and Armenia, was closed. The flood caused mudslides and destroyed an estimated 500–600 meters of the highway, blocking the narrow road... MORE

In mid-June, the European Union pledged to provide one million euros ($1.13 million) to finance a preliminary study on the feasibility of constructing a railway tunnel between Tallinn and Helsinki, under the Gulf of Finland (ERR, June 15). The decision has attracted widespread attention to... MORE

A key link in China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR) suffered a setback in February when Bangladesh’s Awami League (AL) government shelved plans for construction of a deep-sea port at Sonadia, south of Chittagong. Bangladesh is an important participant in China’s “One-Belt, One-Road” (OBOR) initiative. An... MORE