The heavy casualties suffered in early 2018 in Syria by the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company (PMC) working for the Kremlin, turned international experts’ attention to these groups and other irregular forces as tools of Moscow’s non-linear military operations and its commercialization of... MORE

Russian authorities have announced that domestic oil production hit 11.36 million barrels per day (bpd), on average, in September (Vedomosti, October 2). This marks a new historic peak, rea­ched despite the often-cited poor shape of the Russian economy and negative impact of Western sanctions, not... MORE

The putative detachment of Belarus from Russia as well as a twin topic, the supposed annexation of Belarus by Russia, are never-ending refrains in both countries’ media. The former is predictably pursued by Russia’s media outlets, whereas the latter can generally be found by reading... MORE

On October 28, the citizens of Georgia will elect a president for the last time via a direct ballot. According to the new constitution, which will come into force immediately after the inauguration of the fifth president of the republic, the sixth and all subsequent... MORE

The decision of Universal Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I to move toward granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (see EDM, September 13) is an existential threat to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his conception of a “Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”). For one thing, the... MORE

During the September 12 meeting of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), in Vladivostok, Russia and Mongolia, together with China, Japan, and South Korea, signed a number of hydrocarbon production and supply agreements designed to accelerate development of regional energy supply infrastructure in Northeast Asia. Mongolian... MORE

Armenia’s interim Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held talks with Iranian President Dr. Hassan Rouhani, on September 26, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York (Premierminister.am, September 26). The meeting, initiated by the Iranian side, was immediately heralded as signifying a... MORE

The booster malfunction in the third minute of the Soyuz MC-10 rocket launch last Thursday (October 11) avoided tragedy. Though they did not reach orbit, Cosmonaut Aleksei Ovchinin and astronaut Nick Hague landed safely on the ground (TASS, October 11). But it certainly represented another... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise official visit to Azerbaijan, on September 27. The formal reason for his arrival was to hold talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as well as to jointly attend the Ninth Interregional Russia-Azerbaijan Forum (Kremlin.ru, September 27; AzerNews, September... MORE

The Latvian Russian Union (LKS) and Headquarters for the Protection of Russian Schools (HPRS) organized a demonstration in the capital city of Riga, on September 15. The publicized goal of the event was to “prevent educational reform in Latvia, which will lead to a total... MORE