The postponed Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan summit took place last Friday (March 20) in Astana, but the program was cut so short that the only point for staging the event appeared to be to confirm President Vladimir Putin’s return to business as usual (Kommersant, March 21). Presidents Nursultan Nazarbaev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka spent more time together discussing their mutual problems in relations with Russia; and they had good reason to assume that these problems would grow more serious because the European Union, at its recent summit in Brussels, left the sanctions regime against Russia unchanged (RBC, March 20). European leaders expressed differing opinions …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation