Skirmishes in the borderlands of Armenia and Azerbaijan raise fears of escalation.

With its unique political model, Kyrgyzstan, in a region full of autocratic regimes, is sometimes called an “island of democracy”. This reference, however, does not imply full ascension of democracy.

Kyrgyzstan is often understood to be the only democracy in Central Asia. A transfer of power has happened here more often than its neighbours. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have witnessed replacement at the top following the death of their respective rulers; in Kazakhstan, the presidential change happened this year with the approval of its long-serving president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who, as an aksakal , still retains significant political power; Emomali Rakhmon has been ruling Tajikistan, unchallenged, since the mid-1990s, when he rose to power after political turbulences and a bitter civil war.

Cooperation instead of integration.

Gagauzia is an autonomous territorial unit located in the southeast of Moldova. Yet, the complex geopolitical situation in which the tiny region finds itself accentuates the challenges that still exist in the post-Soviet space.

Gagauzia (or Gagauz Yeri in the local language) is a small autonomous region in southern Moldova. Established in its current form in 1995, and officially known as the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, the entity covers 1,832 square kilometres and is divided into three dolays (districts) situated in four enclaves. Out of the population of 155,600 (which makes up 4.6 per cent of Moldova’s population), the Gagauz people represent the majority of the region’s inhabitants (82.1 per cent), followed by Bulgarians (5.1 per cent), Moldovans (4.8 per cent), Russians (3.8 per cent) and Ukrainians (3.2 per cent).

Even after the change of power last year, Armenia continues to adhere to Russia on foreign policy and tolerate Russia’s massive role domestically. Most recently, this is demonstrated by Armenia supporting Russia’s vast military effort in support of the Syrian regime.

After Yuri Khachaturov, Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), was recalled in early November 2018 as a result of governmental changes and criminal investigations against him in his native Armenia, the top position became vacant. The aftermath has exposed on Armenia’s vulnerable position in the organisation.

Closing in on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, what did it mean for Azerbaijani statehood at the time? What does it mean for the Azerbaijan of today?

Moldova`s newly elected president, Igor Dodon, paid his first official visit to Transnistria and held talks with Vadim Krasnoselsky, the head of the breakaway region, on January 4th. The information was provided by Dodon on his Facebook account. According to the Moldovan leader, he congratulated Vadim Krasnoselsky on his victory in the December presidential election, discussed a wide range of issues, including simplifying the movement of people between Moldova and Transnistria. He also wrote about establishing good relations, emphasised the readiness of both parties to look for compromise and promised that the agreement will produce tangible results in 2017. Dodon did not miss the opportunity to touch upon the issue of religion, the Orthodox faith, which according to him “alongside the common history, unites our citizens on both banks of the Dniester.”

On 2 June 2016, Germany's Bundestag passed a resolution qualifying the Ottoman era Armenian killings as genocide. A few days before, the Yerevan population welcomed a monument to Garegin Nzhdeh, a Nazi collaborator.

May 9th has long been something beyond a simple victory day in Russia. It is a national cult. The more years pass and this date becomes a more entrenched part of history, the louder and more grandiosely it is celebrated. However, in contemporary history this important date is gradually becoming more and more irritating and is even posing a threat to other nations, due to several factors.

Long-boiling tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared again on April 2nd, 2016, with dozens of soldiers and civilians from both sides killed in the fighting.

The theatre was centred in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region occupied by Armenian forces. Nagorno-Karabakh, apart from several other districts beyond the region, has been controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994. Although cross-border violence has continued to be a usual phenomenon since the 1994 truce and despite it, annually claiming dozens of lives on both sides, the recent clashes have been the most severe escalation which have almost transformed into full-scale warfare.