Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Nord Stream Two: The Project’s Implications in Europe (Part One)
Russia, Germany and a consortium of Western European companies have re-activated the Gazprom-led Nord Stream Two gas pipeline project. Parallel to the existing Nord Stream One pipeline on the Baltic seabed, Nord Stream Two would double the system’s total capacity to 110 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually, all earmarked for direct delivery...
Russian Presidential Human Rights Council Member Proposes Accepting Several Thousand Circassian Refugees From Syria
On September 10, Maksim Shevchenko, a member of the Council for Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, unexpectedly announced that the Council would ask President Vladimir Putin to allow the repatriation of Circassian Syrians to the North Caucasus. In an interview with the newspaper Izvestia, Shevchenko said he had drafted a...
Nord Stream Expansion Agreed, Wintershall Swapped to Gazprom (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. The agreement to build the Nord Stream Two gas pipeline marks a return to business as usual with the Kremlin in a political sense—that is, accepting Russia’s war against Ukraine as a given and moving past it (see Part One in EDM, September 10). Nord Stream Two, however, goes far beyond business as...
China, Belarus Deepen Ties
Two countries on opposite ends of Eurasia are drawing closer, courtesy of the skein of railways slowly snaking across this massive region in the form of an evolving “Iron Silk Road.” While attending Chinese commemorations of the end of World War II in the Pacific, Belarus’s President Alyaksandr Lukashenka held bilateral talks with his...
Belarusian Stability in Peril
The government in Minsk has long claimed that Belarus’s socioeconomic stability is its major achievement. Indeed, from 1996 to 2014, it experienced positive GDP growth every year, and its living standards were on the rise. However, the conflict in Ukraine ultimately converted this idea of “stability” from a propaganda cliché into a palpable...
A Theme Exaggerated: The Muslim Battalion in Ukraine
The Second World Congress of Crimean Tatars (Butun Dunya Qirim Kongresi—BDQK) took place in Ankara, Turkey, from July 31 to August 2. Among the 600 participants, 410 were registered delegates representing 184 Crimean Tatar organizations from twelve different countries: Ukraine, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Romania, Poland,...
Nord Stream Expansion Agreed, Wintershall Swapped to Gazprom (Part One)
Germany is leading Western Europe’s return to business as usual with Russia in the natural gas sector, notwithstanding Russia’s war in Ukraine. On September 4, at the Vladivostok economic forum, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance, two binding agreements were signed that will dramatically increase Germany’s...
Moscow Ups the Stakes in the Syrian Conflict
Reports of the alleged troop buildup in Syria of a “Russian expeditionary force” to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, first appeared last month (August) in Israeli and Ukrainian online publications. The Kremlin denied these accounts, but seemingly halfheartedly (Kommersant, September 8). On September 4, speaking to journalists in...
Poor Economic Outlook and Lack of Security Undermine Kabardino-Balkaria’s Governor
Brutal police operations in Kabardino-Balkaria in recent months have prompted some experts to conclude that the republic’s governor is building a “police republic.” Yuri Kokov has ruled Kabardino-Balkaria since December 2013, although he was officially appointed governor in October 2014. A career police official, Kokov had led key...
Slavic Brotherhood 2015 Rehearses Anti–Color Revolution Operations
Russia’s Armed Forces conducted a military exercise indicating Moscow’s intent and planning to use military force to thwart future “color revolutions.” Elite Airborne Forces and special forces from Russia, Belarus and Serbia participated in Slavyanskoye Bratstvo (Slavic Brotherhood) 2015, signaling that color revolutions—as a...
