The presidents of Belarus and Russia, Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin, held a long bilateral summit in Sochi, on September 21. The countries’ prime ministers and key government members also took part in the meeting, which attracted significant media attention (Belta.by, September 21). Prior to... MORE

In a statement published on the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) website, on September 21, 2018, the alliance’s Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, who is from Armenia, declared, “We have serious concerns about the recent frequent fire at the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border, as well as communities... MORE

While crises in the Middle East, Ukraine and East Asia occupy much of the world’s headlines, interesting and significant dynamics have been driving events in the Caucasus in recent months. Clearly, Armenia’s “Velvet Revolution” of May 2018 has shaken up the political landscape across the... MORE

A few weeks before Georgia’s presidential elections, scheduled for October 28, the authorities in Tbilisi are trying to demonstrate their unwavering support for closer links with the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). At the same time, Tbilisi has been receiving positive... MORE

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued an executive order, on September 6, creating a “republican state commission on resolving issues related to the definition (clarification) of the boundaries of the Chechen Republic” (Apchr.ru, September 7). Just weeks earlier, the Ingush civil society organization Opora... MORE

Since the Russian state moved into non-Russian areas, it has generally been able to play Cossack units against the local non-Russians in order to strengthen its own position. It did that in the Middle Volga, in Siberia and the Russian Far East, as well as... MORE

Several Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) F-16 jets bombed and destroyed an industrial warehouse in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, on September 17. According to Israeli sources, the warehouse contained Iranian military equipment earmarked for the militant group Hezbollah. The Russian airbase of Hmeymim is... MORE

Russian military strategists who have analyzed regional military conflicts between 1999 and 2014 conclude that even a less-developed party may be able to at least partly degrade the technological advantage of a stronger adversary if the weaker power can attain information superiority over its opponent... MORE

In late August 2018, Russia’s Caspian Flotilla, in conjunction with aviation and coastal air-defense groups, carried out special exercises in the Caspian Sea to test a new tactical formation for detecting and neutralizing low-flying missiles or aircraft (Tvzvezda.ru, August 29). This exercise occurred only days... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The 5+2 negotiation format—comprised of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russia and Ukraine as mediators; the United States and the European Union as observers; and Moldova and Transnistria as “parties to the conflict”—oversees... MORE