Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday Moscow has been urging Gulf countries to consider a common security mechanism for the region and it was time the world got rid of unilateral measures such as sanctions.

• January 15, 2020

Belarus introduced a tax on Friday on oil transportation and transit across its territory, setting it at 50% of profits, a statement from the president’s office said.

• January 10, 2020

Belarus’ state oil company Belorusneft has suspended supplies of its own oil to Germany this month as Minsk needs to compensate for shortages of Russia-sourced oil amid a contract dispute with Moscow, four industry sources told Reuters on Friday.

• January 10, 2020

The presidents of Turkey and Russia on Wednesday formally launched the TurkStream pipeline which will carry Russian natural gas to southern Europe through Turkey, part of Moscow’s efforts to reduce shipments via Ukraine.

• January 8, 2020

Russia’s Russneft, co-owned by trader Glencore, is the only Russian supplier delivering oil to Belarus after the start of the new year, allowing the neighbor’s refiners to continue processing modest volumes of crude, three industry sources told Reuters.

• January 8, 2020

Russia has halted oil supplies to refineries in Belarus, the Belarusian state energy firm said on Friday, amid a new contract dispute that is also threatening large Russian oil deliveries to Western Europe crossing the country.

• January 8, 2020

By Benyamin Poghosyan, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies, Yerevan

Since the start of the negotiations for the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict all options suggested by the mediators have envisaged the return of some territories under the control of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, till now, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have managed to avoid such a scenario. However, this didn’t always happen for reasons under Armenian leaders’ control. READ MORE

• December 24, 2019

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would be completed in a matter of months and U.S. sanctions imposed on the project last week would not be “catastrophic”.

• December 23, 2019