Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
Many observers in Russia and the West are comparing the ongoing Armenian protests against rising electricity prices to the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine. But spokespeople in Yerevan are resisting this attempt to broaden the framing of their project.
As Russia's government mulls retaliation against European countries that are moving to seize Russian state assets to enforce a Yukos-related arbitration-court settlement, Russian analysts decry the moves as part of a "hybrid war" by the West against Russia.
Pro-government media in Azerbaijan have printed what they claim is a letter by jailed investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova that was recently published in The New York Times. But the text -- in which the writer purports to be part of "a group of people working with Armenians, embezzling grants from abroad, drug addicts, rebel revolutionists….implementing the assignments of Mr. Obama" -- has little in common with Ismayilova's original.
A teenager from a Moscow suburb has alienated his family and schoolmates and attracted the attention of the police for his criticism of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. "You are my enemy," his own grandfather told him.
Georgia next week will bury Corporal Ramaz Davitaia, the 30th Georgian soldier killed supporting NATO missions in Afghanistan. Some in Georgia are wondering whether the elusive goal of NATO membership justifies such a cost.
In 2008, Vladimir Putin flatly rejected the 1939 pact between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. But lately -- most recently at a joint press conference with Germany's chancellor -- he has aggressively defended it.
Pro-Ukrainian citizen journalists have posted photographs they say document a massive Russian military convoy -- including Buk antiaircraft systems -- moving from Russia to Ukraine in June 2014, just weeks before a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine with the loss of nearly 300 lives.
The Macedonian government is investigating the May 9 raid against an alleged ethnic Albanian terrorist group that left 22 people dead and dozens injured. But analysts and many in the public are skeptical of the government's claims in the light of recently leaked wiretaps that seem to implicate it in massive abuse of office.
Since Vladimir Putin came to power, Russia has been investing heavily to develop new generations of weapons and other military systems. The results of those investments will soon be coming off the production lines.
Moldova's parliament speaker has released a confidential consultant report into the disappearance of nearly $1 billion from three Moldovan banks in November 2014. The report traces an elaborate plan to stealthily take control of the three banks by purchasing dozens of small, seemingly unconnected stakes -- culminating in an orgy of lending over three days.
Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova is beginning her sixth month in a Baku jail on charges she says are retribution for her corruption reporting. On May 5, she will be given a prestigious freedom-of-speech award by the PEN American Center amid international calls for her release and the release of others believed jailed for their civic activism.
The Belarusian president first criticized those in Moscow who view his country as "a northwestern province" of Russia, then did an about-face by flatly declaring that "we have been and always will be with Russia." The war in Ukraine has put a sharp new spin on the dizzying relations between Minsk and Moscow.
Hundreds of thousands have left Russia over the last two years, citing a variety of political, economic, and personal reasons. Here are a few of the most prominent Russians who have quit Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Ukraine has adopted a raft of de-communization laws aimed at asserting control over the country's understanding of its 20th-century past. Moscow, however, sees the move as an impermissible assault on Russia's own self-image.
A devastating economic crisis, an open conflict with Russia, and now a war between Kyiv and one of Ukraine's leading oligarchs. Is Kyiv making a serious effort at breaking the oligarchs' grip over Ukraine or is the country in for another round of self-destructive infighting that could produce political and economic disaster?
The panic over Russian President Vladimir Putin's mysterious absence underscores the fact that succession is always a major -- often dangerous -- crisis for any personality-centered authoritarian system.
A year after the whirlwind events that led to Russia's March 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, new revelations appear to show that the plan was a long time in the works.
As hopes for implementation of the Minsk II agreement on stabilizing eastern Ukraine fade, the European Union is wrestling with the question, "What next?"
After two months of bruising political wrangling, Moldova has installed a pro-Western minority government that is dependent on the support of the unpredictable Communist Party. But this makeshift resolution could end up derailing Chisinau's course toward Europe.
An unsolved police killing in 2006 continues to cast a long shadow over Georgia's efforts to become a transparent, law-based state.
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