Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian state-owned space corporation Roscosmos, confirmed during parliamentary hearings earlier this month that Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s space and orbital activities (Roscosmos.ru, June 7, 2021). Before this statement, Rogozin usually made it a point to deny that the... MORE

The Russian government is already signaling that it plans an activist approach during its three-year term as chair of the Arctic Council (see EDM, April 22, May 13, 26). It is scheduling various meetings to discuss how that regional body can be mobilized to promote... MORE

The ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, aspires to have not only administrative but also moral control over the population of his republic—as well as beyond. The Chechen government’s peculiar actions have recently again riveted the Russian public, while drawing unexpectedly sharp criticism. On June 10,... MORE

Neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan came close to seeing the outbreak of renewed border clashes on June 4. This danger of fresh violence emerged little more than a month after the so-called “three-day war” between the two countries, from April 28 to April 30—the most significant... MORE

Expectations regarding the summit between Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva last Wednesday (June 16) were set quite low (see EDM, June 14, 17), but the media hype was considerable—and both suited the Russian leader just fine. Putin enjoyed being at the center... MORE

Angry at Lithuania for providing refuge to the Belarusian opposition and for criticizing Minsk’s recent action of forcing a plane to land in Belarus so that the authorities could arrest an opposition activist, the Belarusian government has deployed a new weapon of “hybrid war” against... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The quasi-annual charade surrounding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Membership Action Plans (NATO MAP) for Ukraine and Georgia took a different form at the Alliance’s June 14 summit in Brussels. The Joseph Biden administration has retreated from the... MORE

The heads of state and government of the North Atlantic Organization’s (NATO) 30 member countries held a summit at the Alliance’s Brussels headquarters on June 14. NATO summits usually take two days. This year’s vast agenda—reflected in an unusually long communiqué—clearly would have needed the... MORE

United States President Joseph Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 16, for their first summit since Biden took office. Both countries have been stuck into a vicious spiral of diplomatic, military, political and economic confrontation. Most predictions ahead... MORE

Over the past three decades, various initiatives for regional cooperation in the South Caucasus have been proposed, including the “Peaceful Caucasus Initiative” (Eduard Shevardnadze), “Stability Pact for the Caucasus” (Suleyman Demirel, on January 16, 2000), “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform” (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, August 13,... MORE