In August, a fraud-marred presidential election brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets of Minsk, ushering in weeks of unrest and forcing Belarus’s strongman to solicit Moscow’s grudging support.
MoreEver since he came to power in 1994, Alyaksandr Lukashenka has used controlled elections and other levers at his disposal to prolong his own power and to restrain or eliminate rivals -- in some cases literally, according to those who believe he was behind the unsolved disappearances of several opponents.
MoreRussian visa restrictions for U.S. diplomatic personnel forced the closure of two consulates, the U.S. ambassador said, blaming Moscow for shutdowns that will leave Russians and American citizens living in Russia with a single diplomatic outpost to turn to in the sprawling country.
MoreWithin 24 hours of being posted, Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny's video report of a conversation in which a Federal Security Agency (FSB) chemist appears to confess to participating in Navalny's poisoning with a deadly nerve agent in August racked up nearly 12 million views.
MoreFour years ago stories appeared asking whether 2016 was the worst year ever. Well, 2020 has 2016 beat. You would have to go back to 1968 to find a year filled with as much turmoil.
MoreA Russian documentary filmmaker was detained briefly by police after publicly expressing support for opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, whose release of a phone conversation with a Russian agent shows how the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) poisoned the Kremlin critic with a Novichok nerve agent.
MoreKremlin critic Aleksei Navalny says he duped a Russian agent into revealing how the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) poisoned him with Novichok.
MoreThe outcome of the military conflict in Upper Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia transformed the geopolitical reality in the South Caucasus, with implications for the wider Black Sea-Caspian region. The war demonstrated that power politics is alive and well, and that with great power consent (in this case Russia and Turkey), smaller actors like Azerbaijan
MoreAs he does, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned to a Soviet-era pop culture reference to get his message across at one point in his 4 1/2-hour annual press conference on December 17, when responding to the only reporter from a Western country that is not Iceland who got to ask a question.
MoreThe European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of Fitbit by Google. The approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package offered by Google.
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