In the absence of foreign investors, lucrative assets in Russia can be given for safekeeping to anyone who is “one of us.” Those people will owe their wealth to Putin personally, making them directly dependent on the Kremlin to preserve that wealth. Russia’s elites are unhappy about many things, not …

The way in which Prigozhin was apparently killed suggests the Kremlin wanted to show how it deals with traitors. Whatever really happened, the Russian elite will see the air crash as retribution for Wagner’s armed uprising. “They got him in the end.” This was a common reaction to the news …

(RFE/RL) — The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo failed to reach an agreement for improving bilateral relations during EU-mediated talks in Brussels on September 14. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “we tried hard but, unfortunately, it was not possible to bridge the differences today.” Borrell, who …