Britain’s foreign minister won further support from the European Union and NATO on Monday over a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent as he denounced Moscow’s denials of involvement as “increasingly absurd”.

• March 20, 2018

By Eugene Kogan, Tbilisi-based defence and security expert

The Black Sea region is one of the regions in which Turkey has lost its influence to Russia. NATO and the EU have no influence on relations between Russia and Turkey, as NATO has no mechanism for excluding Turkey as a member state, while the EU, although it has implicitly suspended negotiations on Turkey's possible membership, it is not prepared to make a clear statement that Turkey will not join the Union in the foreseeable future. READ MORE

• March 20, 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Washington to send him hard evidence that his citizens meddled in U.S. elections, mocking accusations to date as“yelling and hollering in the United States Congress”.

• March 4, 2018

The United States is still unsure who directed a Feb. 7 attack on U.S. and U.S.-backed forces in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday, even as he acknowledged accounts that Russian civilian contractors were involved.

• February 18, 2018

By George Vlad Niculescu, Head of Research, the European Geopolitical Forum

Most international analysts agree that Western relations with Russia are at their worst in thirty years, and that they are unlikely to improve unless significant geopolitical changes are going to emerge. More recently, a new academic debate has started on whether, and how, to restore the EU-Russia dialogue to meet the interests of both parties, while trying to reconcile respect for international law with principled pragmatism into creating a new European security architecture. It might be therefore worth looking at the prospects of restoring EU-Russia dialogue through the lens of security scenario planning. READ MORE

• February 9, 2018

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

The Afrin events are being used to assert the notion that without Russian military guarantees, and a Russian military base deployed in Armenia, Yerevan will be under a constant threat from a potential Turkish offensive.
Turkey's military operation in Afrin proved once more that in the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East nothing can be excluded. Obviously, Turkey had made its own calculations when it launched the offensive, and the muted reaction of the main players of the region can be perceived as a proof that some preliminary discussions had taken place before the start of the operation. The nonlinear relations between powers involved in the Middle East makes it really complicated to understand what lies beneath the surface in terms of motives and assessments. READ MORE

• February 2, 2018

A Syrian peace conference in Russia ended on Tuesday with a statement calling for democratic elections but ignoring key opposition demands after a day marred by squabbles and heckling of the Russian foreign minister.

• January 30, 2018

Turkey urged the United States on Thursday to halt its support for Kurdish YPG fighters or risk confronting Turkish forces on the ground in Syria, some of Ankara’s strongest comments yet about a potential clash with its NATO ally.

• January 25, 2018