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☆ A year in Azerbaijan: From the Grand Prix to the ski slopes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Words Cnn Staff | Photo Illustrations Woojin Lee | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

CNN —Anyone who has tuned in to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has seen a tantalizing glimpse of what the capital Baku has to offer. This year’s Grand Prix comes at the height of spring, often said to be Azerbaijan’s most beautiful season. Juan Vilata/Alamy Stock Photo Explore Azerbaijan in spring Prev NextSummers in Azerbaijan are hot, so getting out of the city is a good idea. Alexander Melnikov/Alamy Stock Photo Explore Azerbaijan in fall Prev NextWrap up, because even at its coldest Azerbaijan still has plenty to offer. You’ll learn much more at the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum in Baku.

☆ Exclusive: Kazakhstan has ramped up oil exports bypassing Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Pavel MikheyevMOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan ramped up oil exports bypassing Russia in the first quarter of 2023 as it seeks to reduce its dependency on its vast neighbour, data from industry sources and Refinitiv showed. While Kazakh oil exports through the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus are relatively small, they have risen sharply since Moscow began what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine in February last year. Last year, Kazakhstan's oil exports via routes other than Russia reached 1.8 million tonnes (36,000 barrels per day), up by 638,000 tonnes from 2021. The main, and most profitable, route for oil exports from Kazakhstan remains the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which supplies the global market via a Russian Black Sea terminal. Supplies via CPC dipped 1% last year to 51.99 million tonnes, but they still represented more than 80% of total oil exports from Kazakhstan.

☆ The F-35 is becoming the most popular fighter jet among NATO militaries — with one 'baffling' exception
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Michael Peck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Romania is the latest NATO member to say it will buy the F-35 stealth fighter jet. To some in the West, Turkey's decision to choose the S-400 over the F-35 just does not compute. As one of the original partners in the US-led F-35 program, Turkey should have been among the first to get the cutting-edge stealth fighter. The F-35/S-400 controversy illustrates Turkey's position as the odd man in NATO since it joined in 1952. Putin and Erdogan inspect a Russian Su-57 fighter jet at the MAKS air show in Russia in August 2019.

☆ When it's dumpling-eatin' time in Georgia...
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TBILISI, April 12 (Reuters) - In the mountainous Caucasus nation of Georgia, dumpling-eating is a serious affair. "I'm not Georgian, but the first rule I learnt when I came to Georgia was how to eat khinkali," says Sergei Shirinsky, who dubs himself a connoisseur. That's the first rule," Shirinsky says. "If you add something other than pepper you can go to prison in Georgia," Shirinsky jokes as he manoeuvres the fluffy parcel past his moustache, completing a demonstration of how khinkali should be eaten. The exact origins of the dumpling in Georgia are unclear, but it has been prepared in towns and villages across the country for centuries and different regions still bicker over who invented it and who makes it best.

☆ Russia warns Armenia against allying with ICC after Putin arrest warrant - RIA
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Russia has warned Armenia of "serious consequences" if it submits to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, the RIA news agency reported on Monday. The ICC issued the warrant this month, accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, a move condemned by the Kremlin as a meaningless and outrageously partisan decision. RIA, a state Russian news agency, cited a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying that Moscow regarded Armenia's ICC plans as "unacceptable". The ICC warrant has the potential to complicate Putin's global travel plans if a country he wants to travel to is an official party to the Rome Statute. Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alison WilliamsOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Factbox: Britain calls out Russia, China in updated foreign policy review
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) - Britain published an update to its foreign policy framework on Monday, which announced increases in defence spending and labelled China as a challenge while citing Russia as the most acute threat to Britain's security. The new strategy towards Russia will focus on denying it any benefit from invading Ukraine; contesting Russia's "malign" influence globally and degrading the country's capabilities threatening Britain, including preventing access to critical technology and materials. Britain said Russia's growing cooperation with China and Iran following the invasion of Ukraine are developments of particular concern. CHINABritain said China poses an "epoch-defining challenge" with implications for almost every area of government policy and the lives of British people. NUCLEAR PLANRecognising the growing importance of nuclear to its security, energy and economy needs, Britain said it would publish a Defence Nuclear Strategy later this year.

☆ Georgia's parliament drops 'foreign agents' bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Jake Cordell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Lawmakers attend a plenary session of parliament where they vote on controversial 'foreign agents' bill that sparked mass protests in recent days, in Tbilisi, Georgia March 10, 2023, in this still image taken from video. Parliament of Georgia/Handout via REUTERSSummary Proposals had triggered massive street protestsCritics said bill was Russian-inspired, authoritarian moveGovernment defended proposals as boosting transparencyTBILISI, March 10 (Reuters) - Georgia's parliament on Friday dropped plans for a "foreign agents" bill that had triggered a major domestic political crisis and threatened to derail the Caucasus nation's bid for closer ties with Europe. The bill would have required non-government organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register with Georgia's Justice Ministry as a Foreign Agent. The Kremlin said it had no involvement whatsoever in the Georgian bill and rejected suggestions that it was Russian-inspired. Georgian Dream lawmakers had said the bill was based on the United States' own Foreign Agents Registration Act, which primarily covers lobbyists working directly for foreign governments.

"It seems to me that all the countries located around the Russian Federation should draw their own conclusions about how dangerous it is to take a path towards engagement with the United States' zone of responsibility, its zone of interests." Putin casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with the West over the future of both Russia and its former Soviet and imperial satellites which since 1991 have been courted by the United States, NATO, the EU, and China. Washington and the broader West, Lavrov said, wanted to punish Russia because it was perceived as "too independent a player" which challenged the hegemony of the United States. Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister since 2004, said that events in Georgia were orchestrated from outside and motivated by a Western attempt to claw away Russia's traditional allies. They say they simply did not agree with the proposed law and want a Western future which Russia, that fought a war against Georgia in 2008, does not offer.

☆ Factbox: Why is Georgia in turmoil over a "foreign agents" law?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Jake Cordell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

TBILISI, March 9 (Reuters) - Ruling lawmakers in the South Caucasus country of Georgia on Thursday scrapped plans to introduce what critics called a Russian-inspired "foreign agents" law after two days of intense street protests in the capital Tbilisi. Here is a guide to what's going on:WHAT IS THE PROPOSED 'FOREIGN AGENTS' LAW? - Swathes of Georgian civil society, including election monitors, corruption watchdogs and independent media outlets would have been covered by the law. - Rights groups say the "foreign agent" tag is a designed to make it easier for the government to discredit its opponents. - It says it is modelled on the U.S. 1938 "Foreign Agents Registration Act", which primarily covers lobbyists and organisations directly working for or under the control of foreign governments.

☆ 'Europe is very much open for you': Germany backs EU membership bid of Russia's neighbor Georgia
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Karen Gilchrist | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Robert Habeck, Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, and Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia, shared their views on Georgia's EU membership bid. BERLIN — German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck backed the European Union membership bid of Russia's Caucasus neighbor, Georgia, saying that the country was "very much welcome" in the bloc. Georgia, a former Soviet state situated to Russia's south-west border, applied for EU membership on March 3, 2022, one week after Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine. Georgia is one of a number of countries in the region that have hastened their EU membership bids in the wake of Russia's invasion. Ukraine and neighboring Moldova applied for EU membership in February and March 2022, respectively, and were granted candidate status in June.

☆ Georgian police use tear gas on protesters after parliament backs 'foreign agents' law
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/9] A protester sits on his haunches in front of police officers, who block the way during a rally against the "foreign agents" law in Tbilisi, Georgia, March 7, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli GedenidzeTBILISI, March 7 (Reuters) - Georgian police used tear gas to disperse protesters on Tuesday in central Tbilisi after parliament gave its initial backing to a draft law on "foreign agents" which critics say represents an authoritarian shift in the South Caucasus country. The law, backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, would require any organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register as "foreign agents", or face substantial fines. Georgian television showed protesters angrily remonstrating with police armed with riot shields who then used tear gas. "The future of our country doesn't belong to, and will not belong to, foreign agents and servants of foreign countries," he said.

The following are details of Russia's nuclear arsenal, how big it is and who commands it. NUCLEAR SUPERPOWERRussia, which inherited the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, has the world's biggest store of nuclear warheads. Around 1,500 of those warheads are retired (but probably still intact), 2889 are in reserve and around 1588 are deployed strategic warheads. The United States has around 1644 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The Russian president is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to using Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic, according to Russia's nuclear doctrine.

☆ Factbox: Russia's nuclear arsenal: how big and who controls it?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Guy Faulconbridge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

What is Russia's nuclear arsenal, how big is it and who commands it? NUCLEAR SUPERPOWERRussia, which inherited the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, has the world's biggest store of nuclear warheads. Around 1,500 of those warheads are retired (but probably still intact), 2889 are in reserve and around 1588 are deployed strategic warheads. The United States has around 1644 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The Russian president is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to using Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic, according to Russia's nuclear doctrine.

☆ Leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan set for first meeting since October
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 18 (Reuters) - The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are set to meet for the first time since October at trilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Munich on Saturday, the U.S. State Department said. The U.S. State Department said Blinken would meet Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev at 1235 GMT. Armenia has sent Azerbaijan a draft proposal for a peace settlement, Pashinyan said this week. Azeri civilians identifying themselves as environmental activists have been facing off since Dec. 12 with Russian peacekeepers on the Lachin corridor. Saturday's meeting would be the two leaders' first face-to-face encounter since late October, when Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted talks in the Black Sea city of Sochi.

☆ Petronas units in Luxembourg seized again in $15 bln arbitration dispute
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Rozanna Latiff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

It obtained a stay on the award in France but the ruling remains enforceable overseas under a United Nations treaty on arbitration. The Petronas Azerbaijan (Shah Deniz) and Petronas South Caucasus units were first seized in July 2022, but the Malaysian government said last month that the order had been set aside by a Luxembourg district court. On Tuesday, Luxembourg court bailiffs issued a second seizure order on the units and related bank accounts, court documents shared by the heirs' lawyer, Paul Cohen, showed. The Luxembourg court could not be immediately reached for comment. The heirs say they were not involved in the incursion and sought arbitration over the suspension of payments.

☆ Russia can take Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa, Chechnya's Kadyrov says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, said in an interview aired on Monday that Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine by the end of the year and it would be wrong to negotiate with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "I believe that, by the end of the year, we will 100% complete the task set for us today," Kadyrov said. Nevertheless, Kadyrov told interviewer Olga Skabeyeva, who hosts a stridently pro-war chat show: "If we sit down at the negotiating table with Zelenskiy, yes, I think that's wrong." Kadyrov is a former Chechen separatist fighter who switched sides in the late 1990s, joining the pro-Russian administration in the restive Caucasus region along with his wider family. His father was assassinated by pro-independence militants in 2004, and Russian President Vladimir Putin personally installed him as leader of Chechnya in 2007.

☆ Top U.S., Chinese and Russian officials tour Africa as global charm offensive gathers pace
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, during a news conference with Enoch Godongwana, South Africa's finance minister, at the National Treasury in Pretoria, South Africa, on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Yellen met with South African officials including President Cyril Ramaphosa last week, just days after the country's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor stood alongside Lavrov and vowed to strengthen bilateral relations between Pretoria and Moscow. South Africa was one of 17 African nations to abstain from the U.N. vote in March to condemn Russia's war of aggression. As such, many African nations desire a strong relationship with both the U.S. and China, and U.S. diplomacy will be more effective when not framed as an "us-or-them" proposition. What's more, the BRI projects were "largely uncoordinated and unplanned," he said, with competing Chinese lenders offering credit to African nations, challenging the notion of a coherent centralized "debt trap" policy from Beijing.

☆ Armenia tells World Court Azerbaijan blockade is 'ethnic cleansing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Stephanie Van Den Berg | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

THE HAGUE, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Armenia told judges at the World Court on Monday that a blockade of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region by neighbouring Azerbaijan was designed to allow "ethnic cleansing", a claim rejected by Baku. Monday's hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, was called to hear an Armenian request for the court to order Azerbaijan to lift the blockade. "Such blatant acts of ethnic cleansing have no place in the modern era and this court is the last hope for the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh," Kirakosyan said. Mammadov also said that Armenia's claims of ethnic cleansing were "distorting reality deliberately" and were "fanning the flames" of conflict. On Tuesday the ICJ will hear a competing demand from Azerbaijan for the court to order Armenia to stop planting landmines in territories it once occupied.

☆ Azerbaijan strongly protests to Iran after fatal embassy shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Nailia Bagirova | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"Necessary security measures have been taken to continue normal activities at the embassy and diplomats of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran," he said. [1/5] A general view of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan after an attack on it, in Tehran, Iran, January 27, 2023. It said an "anti-Azerbaijani campaign" in Iran had contributed to the attack, without elaborating, and accused Tehran of long ignoring its appeals to boost embassy security. Iran's Amirabdollahian later told Azeri Foreign Minister Jayran Bairamov in a phone call that he hoped the attack would not damage bilateral ties. Israel has had an embassy in Baku since the early 1990s and has been a significant military backer of Azerbaijan in recent years.

☆ Russia, South Africa and a 'redesigned global order': The Kremlin's hearts and minds machine is steaming ahead
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Pretoria as part of an African tour, his second since the invasion, which will also reportedly take him to Botswana, Angola and Eswatini. On Feb. 24 2022, shortly after the Ukraine invasion, South Africa urged Russia to immediately withdraw its forces from Ukraine. South Africa was one of 15 African nations to abstain from the subsequent U.N. vote in March to condemn Russia's war of aggression. watch nowShe emphasized the multilateral responsibilities of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bloc of leading emerging economies in a changing global landscape. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that "the United States has concerns about any country … exercising with Russia as Russia wages a brutal war against Ukraine."

☆ Russia’s Influence Wanes in Ex-Soviet States as It Pursues Ukraine War
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Ann M. Simmons | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

MOSCOW—Escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan are exposing the declining influence of Russia in its backyard, as the Kremlin diverts money and manpower to the war in Ukraine. The situation regards Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory in the South Caucasus that has been disputed, often violently, by the two former Soviet republics for almost three decades. The enclave is home to 120,000 people, mostly ethnic Armenians, but is internationally recognized as being part of Azerbaijan.

☆ Caspian seal deaths: Thousands of dead seals wash up in Russia's Dagestan
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Mariya Knight | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Around 2,500 endangered seals have been found dead on Russia’s Caspian coast, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Sunday, citing authorities in the North Caucasus region. Caspian seals, the only mammals found in the Caspian Sea, have been classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list since 2008. According to RIA, inspectors were patrolling the coastline in search of additional dead seals. Meanwhile, specialists from the Caspian Environmental Center were analyzing samples from the dead seals to identify the cause of death. The mass deaths come after more than 140 Caspian seals were found dead on Kazakh beaches of the Caspian Sea earlier this year, according to KASPIKA, an agency for the conservation of Caspian seals.

☆ Putin's war in Ukraine looks more and more like a failure. Past Russian leaders haven't survived similar mistakes.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Joy Neumeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Instead, Russia's failing war effort has raised doubts about Putin's hold on power. For now, Putin looks secure, but past Russian leaders have suffered at home for blunders abroad. By the following summer, the Germans had taken huge swathes of Russian-controlled territory and a million Russian soldiers were dead. Captured Russian soldiers after the defeat at Tannenberg, in present-day Poland, on August 30, 1914. After an ineffectual troop surge, Gorbachev gave up on trying to improve the situation, and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989.

☆ Kazakhstan seeks share of booming Russia-Iran cargo traffic
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Zhumangarin said reducing red tape and improving infrastructure could streamline cargo flows. Zhumangarin also said Kazakhstan was considering building a third railway crossing on its border with China. The move could be regarded as either positive or negative for Russia, depending on where the added volumes go. The Central Asian nation is in talks with the European Union about boosting its transit capacity as part of a project to divert China-Europe cargo traffic from Russia to the Caspian and the Caucasus. Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Mariya Gordeyeva; Editing by Jan HarveyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ These economies are booming as Putin's war drives migrants and money out of Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Karen Gilchrist | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Russians cross the border between Russia and Georgia days after President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization drive on September 21. Daro Sulakauri | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesAs many economies reel from the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a select few countries are benefiting from an influx of Russian migrants and their accompanying wealth. The country's initial wave accounts for almost a quarter (23.4%) of all emigres out of Russia up to September, according to an online survey of 2,000 Russian migrants conducted by research group Ponars Eurasia. The majority of the remaining Russian migrants have fled to Turkey (24.9%), Armenia (15.1%) and uncited "other" countries (19%). 'Highly active' migrantsGeorgia's strategic location and its historic and economic ties with Russia make it an obvious entry point for Russian migrants.

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