This week (May 25), the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gathered in Brussels for a special summit. Hopes abounded in Moscow that the summit would not be dominated by Russia and the escalation of East-West tensions and that more attention would be... MORE

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyaev’s five-day trip to China earlier this month (May 11–15) has signaled that he is now moving on from the first phase of his foreign policy activities (Ng.ru, May 11). Since President Mirziyaev took office last December, priority was first accorded... MORE

China hosted a major international gathering on May 14 and 15. Over a thousand delegates from 110 countries, including 29 world leaders, flocked to Beijing to attend the so-called One Belt, One Road Summit. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed by Chinese... MORE

The outbreak of war in the Donbas region (April 2014) turned Ukraine into one of the main targets of Russian information warfare, information-psychological operations, as well as cyberattacks and electronic warfare. Within the past three years, Ukraine has been subjected to no less than 7,000... MORE

After the liquidation of the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS—see EDM, September 7, 2016), no polling agency, state-run or independent, has conducted and published regular national surveys. From time to time, however, the void is filled by reliable sources. Thus, in April,... MORE

With Azerbaijan and Pakistan currently pursuing a strategic partnership (see EDM, September 28, 2016; December 15, 2016), Armenia and India have decided to step up their cooperation across several dimensions. Indeed, the past six months were marked by a visible reinvigoration of Armenian-Indian bilateral ties,... MORE

Since the start of 2017, the amount of cargo passing through Russian ports on the Caspian Sea has fallen, compared to last year, by 48.4 percent to only 1.1 million tons, according to the Russian Ports Association. This figure is striking given that Russian ports... MORE

The Russian Supreme Court ruled, on May 15, to revoke the registration of the All-Russia Azerbaijanis Congress (ARAC), the largest and most influential Azerbaijani Diaspora organization in Russia. The initial decision came on March 9, at the request of the Russian Ministry of Justice, which... MORE

In January 2015, in the aftermath of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and calls by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States for Allies to increase their defense budgets, Romania decided to allocate 2 percent of its GDP for its Armed Forces. President... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. With the new landing ship Ivan Gren expected to be handed over to the Russian Navy later this year, the country is clearly trying to preserve its amphibious assault capabilities (see Part One in EDM, May 17). After... MORE