It has been two years since Nikol Pashinyan has come to power after the Velvet Revolution in Armenia. In this episode Adam catches up with Richard Giragosian to discuss how much has changed in the country and how much has not.

The story of Russia’s credit to Moldova has ended before it even started. After more than seven hours of hearings conducted on May 7th, the Constitutional Court decided to cancel the approval of 200 million euros of Russian loans. The court sided with the opionion of the Moldovan opposition and declared the credit agreement unconstitutional.

While both in the United States and Europe, the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England all rushed to help their ailing economies during the pandemic, the Central Bank in Russia has done nothing except organise small currency interventions supporting the rouble.

Developments in relations between Romania and Moldova have raised a lot eyebrows lately. After Moldova’s pro-European government has fallen to be replaced by a Kremlin-friendly one; along with an already pro-Russia president the question remains as to what role Romania plays in all this.

The decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova on whether to accept a Russian loan offer could have long term implications for the country.

A review of The Putin System: An Opposing View. By: Grigory Yavlinsky. Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2019.

When exploring the sources of Putin’s popularity at home it becomes clear that foreign policy has had an impact.

This episode takes an in-depth look at the political developments in Russia and analyzes the changes that were made in order for Vladimir Putin to stay on as president of the Russian Federation for at least another two terms.

Playing the role as the nation’s leader, Vladimir Putin paid a visit to the Kommunarka hospital in Moscow, the place where those infected with coronavirus are being treated. Just six days later the head doctor of the hospital, Denis Protsenko, announced on Facebook that he had contracted the virus.

Although Russia as a whole suffers from a continuous population decrease, Kaliningrad Oblast keeps attracting newcomers. For the first time in its 75 year-long history, the semi-exclave has exceeded one million inhabitants and continues to grow. Yet only the city and its immediate surroundings benefit from this trend.

The Kaliningrad Oblast, which is located on the Baltic Sea between Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north and east, was built on the ruins of the German province of East Prussia together with its capital city, Königsberg. The majority of its population, mostly ethnic Germans, fled in late 1944 and early 1945 as the Soviet Red Army advanced beyond the borders into pre-war Germany and started to encircle the region. The remaining thousands were resettled by the new authorities at the beginning of the 1950s. The repopulation of the region, now under Soviet control, was gradual and slow. By the beginning of the 1980s, the number of inhabitants in Kaliningrad had reached its pre-war levels.

An interview with Lieutenant General Sławomir Wojciechowski from NATO’s Multinational Corps Northeast. Interviewer: Jakub Bornio

JAKUB BORNIO: Both the status of the Multinational Corps and the international security environment is very different today from when the corps was created in 1999. How would you assess these changes?

SŁAWOMIR WOJCIECHOWSKI: Preparing for the 20th anniversary of the corps and examining its beginnings, I came across some documents that surprised me. It turned out that even though there has been a changing security dynamic, the unit that I have come to lead (since 2018 – editor’s note) has always had objectives that corresponded to the geographical location, being able to function on a defined area. At the time the threats associated with the region were perceived as very unlikely, and objectives outside of our region seemed more likely. The difference today is that we don’t speak of the same elements that were on the agenda back then, they have been somewhat erased. Today, we only speak of ensuring security for the region.

A review of The Shadow in the East. Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front. By: Aliide Naylor. Publisher: I.B. Tauris, London, 2020.