Eurasia

Moscow may be drawing most of its conscripts for the war in Ukraine from ethnic minority regions such as Buryatia and Dagestan (see EDM, May 4), but there appears to be a wartime division of labor amongst the voluntarist Cossack movement as well. In particular, one can observe a distinction …

“Sacramento police want your guns in exchange for gas money,” says a May 6 Sacramento Bee headline. The department asks residents to give away their firearms, which the Second Amendment authorizes them to keep and bear, for a $50 gas gift card that would not even provide a fill-up for …

Iraq has blown past all the constitutional deadlines to form a government in the aftermath of its October 2021 parliamentary elections, the results of which initially threatened to upend Iraq’s system of sectarian kleptocracy. Instead, seven months after the election, Iraq’s government formation talks appear to have reached a stalemate, …

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated Europe’s energy crisis, leaving the European Union desperately seeking alternative sources of supply to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Among the states in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia the EU has turned to in efforts to diversify its energy …

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured a suspected ISIS facilitator in an operation near the Euphrates River Valley in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zor province, the US-led Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant (SOJTF LEVANT) announced on Tuesday morning.

A Country With More Military and Tech Power—but Fewer Ukrainians Ten weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is hard to see how and when the war will end. At the end of March, the Russian army withdrew from around Kyiv, but it is still pounding Kharkiv and Mariupol and …

It’s Time to Move Past Washington’s Cautious Approach For years before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Ukrainians had been growing frustrated with U.S. leadership. A former high-level Ukrainian official described U.S. policy to the country in this way: “You won’t let us drown, but you won’t let us swim.” …

An interminable and unwinnable war in Europe? That’s what NATO leaders fear and are bracing for as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its third month with little sign of a decisive military victory for either side and no resolution in sight. The possibility of a stalemate is fueling concerns …

The National Interest has published a shameless apology for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen, “The Saudi War of Necessity in Yemen” by Ahmed al-Maimouni. With his second sentence, Al-Maimouni, a retired Saudi major general, forfeits his right to be taken seriously: “It is imperative for Saudi Arabia to preserve …

Elbrus Kutrashev spoke to the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw about plans to export natural gas from the autonomous part of northern Iraq to Europe in response to the war in Ukraine. Russia’s ambassador to Iraq addressed plans to export natural gas from the Kurdistan Region to Europe in an interview …