With less than a fortnight to go before Belarus’s presidential elections on August 9, predictions remain uncertain. On the one hand, the incumbent President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will almost surely win—perhaps with as much as around 80 percent of the vote. But on the other hand,... MORE

Moscow has maneuvered Ukraine’s Presidential Office into quasi-recognizing Russia’s military proxies in “certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” (Russian and Ukrainian acronym: ORDLO) for the first time. The vehicle for this breakthrough is the agreement on “Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire Regime,” negotiated... MORE

Russia’s naval development is heavily tied to the continued introduction of high-precision strike capabilities offered by the maritime variants of the Kalibr or Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile systems. These are mentioned ever more frequently in reports on the plans to modernize the Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy... MORE

On July 9, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) arrested a group of radical pro-Russia separatists promoting the creation of the so-called “Zaporizhian People’s Republic” (ZPR). In 2014, these individuals allegedly tried to seize power in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast but had to flee to... MORE

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into a recession and damaged global supply chains. Russia’s defense industry has not been immune to these disruptive processes, and it came under government-mandated lockdowns between March and June 2020. The shutdowns have already created delays in weapons... MORE

Many in Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and the West have expressed surprise at the Russian government’s efforts to remain neutral in the face of new fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But in fact, Russian military commentator Aleksandr Staver says, Moscow has always had good reasons to... MORE

On July 10, Armenia’s Security Council approved a new National Security Strategy. It is considerably longer than the previous version of this document, adopted in 2007 (Armenia’s first strategy planning document since the country regained its independence in 1991), and the updated strategy appears more... MORE

On June 13, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved a program for the development of the domestic coal industry until 2035 (Government.ru, June 14). The realization of the newly adopted program will follow three stages (Consultant.ru, accessed July 17): The first (backdated) stage (2019–2025) envisages... MORE

The “tradition” of staging an annual naval parade in St. Petersburg was established by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017, and every year the show has become more extravagant. Last Sunday (July 26), Russia’s Navy Day, 46 combat ships led by the newly built frigate... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Moldova’s ACUM (“NOW”) bloc of two parties led a minority government in June–November 2019, with parliamentary support from President Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party. After five months in office, however, then–prime minister Maia Sandu unilaterally terminated that arrangement... MORE