Exerting influence in the wider Black and Caspian Seas region is becoming a crucial element in Russia’s current geopolitical strategy. Energy and security are two of Moscow’s primary concerns relating to the region. Turkey, the EU, and the United States, as well as international energy companies will have to be aware of the operational instruments which Moscow has been deploying as part of its geopolitical strategy in the region, which include:
1) inserting itself into the domestic political affairs of its post-Soviet neighbors;
2) simultaneously acting as a crisis mediator/peacekeeper and fostering regional tension to provoke further crisis;
3) behaving as the regional “strong man” in the name of protecting Russian minorities;
4) strengthening energy ties with other former-Soviet Republics in the region; and
5) striking bilateral commercial deals with select Western corporate partners and governments. The deployment of such instruments will ensure that Moscow’s approach to regional geopolitics will remain purposefully unpredictable and full of intrigue, and will invariably continue to take other regional actors by surprise. READ MORE

• August 4, 2010

International monitors are expected in Armenia to examine plans to start construction of a nuclear power plant, a state agency said.

• July 31, 2010

India and the US have signed an agreement on reprocessing of American nuclear spent fuel by India, marking the final steps in terms of implementation of the landmark civil nuclear deal between the two countries.

• July 31, 2010

Russian officials are making a costly and two-fold mistake in viewing Ukraine as a country permanently divided between a virulently nationalistic and Russophobic West and a Russian-speaking and pro-Moscow East, according to a senior analyst at the Moscow Institute of CIS Countries

• July 31, 2010

British Prime Minister David Cameron wooed Indian business leaders Wednesday in a remarkable pitch aimed at revitalizing his nation's economy with help from the burgeoning Asian power it once ruled.

• July 29, 2010

While we obsessed over Russian spies, top diplomats were working to stop a greater espionage problem: the threat of cyberwarfare.

• July 29, 2010

British Prime Minister David Cameron wooed Indian business leaders Wednesday in a remarkable pitch aimed at revitalizing his nation's economy with help from the burgeoning Asian power it once ruled.

• July 29, 2010

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Anderi Nesterenko in a statement published here on Tuesday welcomed Iran’s readiness for technical talks in the field of exchanging nuclear fuel for Tehran Research Reactor.

• July 28, 2010