Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Minister of Defense of Georgia Continues to ‘Knock at NATO’s Door’
Georgia’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze recently visited the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where he held talks with NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow. The Georgian minister also took part in a meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission, with the participation of the permanent...
Berlin, Paris Side With Moscow Against Kyiv In Normandy Group’s Meeting
As anticipated (see EDM, February 26), the “Normandy” meeting on March 3–4, in Paris, cornered Ukraine to extract its acceptance of “elections” in the Russian-occupied territory. German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier did almost all the hectoring; his French counterpart, Jean-Marie Ayrault, provided the echo, while...
Faltering Revenues Jeopardize Russia’s Military Rearmament Program
The Russian Ministry of Finance is struggling to balance the budget, gutted by the low prices of oil and other Russian staple export commodities. The problem is made worse by Western financial sanctions over Crimea and Ukraine, which have severely limited Moscow’s ability to borrow abroad, while the internal money market is shallow (see...
Cossack Patrols in Stavropol Receive Stronger Policing Powers
The government of Stavropol region is set to expand the powers of Cossack patrols in the region. According to new legislation proposed by the regional council, citizens who disobey Cossack patrols now will be subject to fines. Meanwhile, Cossack leaders say that citizens already do not disobey Cossack patrols, given that the Cossacks patrol...
Russia’s Newest Balkan Games
Experts have long known that the Balkans are a political battleground between Russia and the West. And this chronic non-military conflict has only intensified with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and intervention in Syria. Clearly, Moscow regards both democracy and European integration—the two key issues in the Balkans—as dangerous to Russian...
Gerasimov Calls for New Strategy to Counter Color Revolution
Russia’s top brass has called on leading military theorists and specialists as well as the defense industry and the government to jointly develop a “soft power” strategy to counter the potential threat from “color revolutions.” The annual general meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences (Akademiya Voyennykh Nauk—AVN), on February 27, saw...
Turkey–Greece–Italy Interconnector: South Stream’s Latest Avatar? (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Russian Gazprom, Greek DEPA/DESFA, and Italian Edison propose a modified version of Gazprom’s South Stream project, using the Interconnector Turkey–Greece–Italy (ITGI project) for a pipeline corridor to deliver Russian gas to Europe. This revamped version presupposes (like South Stream’s original...
Belarus: 19th Century Geopolitics Lives On
In January 2009, that is, during the previous (2008–2010) thaw between Belarus and the West, the International Monetary Fund set up a line of credit for Minsk worth $2.46 billion and then increased it to $3.56 billion precisely when (June 2009) Russia reneged on transmitting the final $500,000 portion of its own $2 billion loan to Belarus...
Russia Is Giving up on Its Tragedies—and on Itself
President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating is regularly accepted as a proxy measure for the level of Russia’s internal cohesion. And his support remains on a sky-high plateau, where it has stood since the explosion of jingoism caused by the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 (Levada.ru, February 26). However, powerful and divisive...
Turkey-Greece-Italy Interconnector: South Stream’s Latest Avatar? (Part One)
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the South Stream gas export project in 2007. All along, Russia lacked the gas volumes and financing that this gigantic project presupposed. Moscow poured all its resources into Nord Stream. It did not seriously intend South Stream as an energy supply project, but rather as a political project, with many...
