Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
RUSSIAN ENERGY PROFITS AID RUSSIAN MILITARY, BUT NOT MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL SECTOR
Although energy and foreign policy issues have dominated reporting from Russia in 2006, there have also been interesting developments in the defense sector. The Putin regime has launched a comprehensive effort to modernize the Russian military, including its defense-industrial sector. Moreover, this effort has included... MORE
TURNING DEMOCRACY INTO A “FRINGE ELEMENT” AND MOLDOVA INTO A RUSSIAN PROTECTORATE
The latest session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna adds to the indications that officials in Brussels and Washington are returning to the 2002-2004 policy of resolving the Transnistria conflict in a manner that abandons Moldova to Russian domination. That policy entails now, as... MORE
GEORGIAN ARMY MARKS 15th ANNIVERSARY, BUT IS IT READY FOR NATO?
Fifteen years ago this week, Georgia created its own armed forces. Tbilisi celebrated this anniversary by taking major steps toward eventual NATO integration. Yesterday, May 2, Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili presented Georgia's Strategic Defense Review (SDR) to a high-ranking audience of senior NATO policymakers... MORE
AZERBAIJAN’S PRESIDENT IN WASHINGTON (part 2)
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's April 25-28 visit to Washington -- his first as chief of state since 2003 -- was a long overdue event for the president of a country allied to the United States and key to energy supplies to the West. On the... MORE
GAZPROM PICKS OFF ONE LARGE GERMAN MORSEL, POISED FOR ANOTHER
With Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel looking on, the chairmen of Gazprom and BASF, Alexei Miller and Juergen Hambrecht, signed an agreement on joint ventures in Siberian gas field development and gas marketing in Germany and Europe on April 27. The... MORE
RUSSIAN-GERMAN SUMMIT IN TOMSK: SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP ON DISPLAY
The Russian-German energy and political summit held April 26-28 in Tomsk indicated that Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat-Social Democrat government is reverting to the Russia policy line established by her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrat-Green government. Eight cabinet ministers and a massive group of business... MORE
RACIST MURDERS DEAL FURTHER BLOW TO RUSSIA’S STANDING IN ARMENIA
The latest upsurge in murders of dark-skinned immigrants living in Russia has not only reinforced the country's image as a hotbed of xenophobic extremism, it also has negative implications for the future of its relations with one of its most loyal allies. The April 22... MORE
KAZAKH-UZBEK BORDER INCIDENT SIGNALS TENSION
An April 19 incident involving Uzbek border guards and a Kazakh national revealed the ongoing cross-border tensions and geopolitical rivalry between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Reports in the media of both countries tended to overemphasize the significance of the incident, which has been taken up at... MORE
NOT QUITE 100 YEARS OF CURTAILED RUSSIAN PARLIAMENTARISM
Last week both chambers of the Russian parliament gathered for a special session in St. Petersburg to mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first State Duma. Tsar Nicholas II had ordered the creation of an arena for political dialogue in a country... MORE
RUSSIAN OIL TO FLOW TO CHINA EVEN BEFORE PIPELINE COMPLETED
In an apparent bid to secure a toehold on the lucrative Chinese market, Russian oil majors have moved to supply crude oil to China through Kazakhstan, rather than waiting for completion of Russia's own Pacific oil pipeline. Russia's state-owned oil pipeline monopoly Transneft indicated on... MORE