President Donald Trump said Washington would withdraw from a landmark Cold War-era treaty that eliminated nuclear missiles from Europe because Russia was violating the pact, triggering a warning of retaliatory measures from Moscow.

• October 22, 2018

By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise official visit to Azerbaijan, on September 27. The formal reason for his arrival was to hold talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as well as to jointly attend the Ninth Interregional Russia-Azerbaijan Forum. Local mass media in both Azerbaijan and Russia described Putin’s visit as a next significant step in improving the strategic partnership between the two countries. READ MORE

• October 15, 2018

By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Executive Director, Political Science Association of Armenia

The current phase of the international relations can be best characterized by one word – transition. The Post-cold war order is rapidly disappearing creating strategic ambiguity for all actors. The U.S. hegemony is over or close to over despite the fact that militarily Washington will be far from the reach for several decades to come. However, growing national debt, looming crisis in social security and Medicare systems, uncontrolled migration, growing populism, and partisan fighting does not bode well for the future U.S. dominance. READ MORE

• October 12, 2018

Russia plans to halt exports of light and heavy oil products to Belarus from next month until the end of next year, with restrictions also applying to shipments of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), two Russian government sources told Reuters.

• October 11, 2018

Russia’s military spies are being mocked abroad as bunglers but the army’s influence over Kremlin foreign policy is growing and there is little likelihood it will halt its “black operations”.

• October 11, 2018

Global energy bosses assembled in Moscow on Wednesday said the world needed Russian gas to keep the lights on, in a clear message to U.S. President Donald Trump who has warned he may impose sanctions on Russian gas export projects.

• October 8, 2018

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States was uncompetitive in Europe.

• October 8, 2018

Russia is setting records in gas pipeline exports despite U.S. pressure on Europe to reduce imports, and aims to become the world’s leading liquefied gas exporter in the next decade thanks to technology it is developing at home.

• October 8, 2018