Russia intends to request US permission to conduct observation flights over the United States.  They hope to do this with the use of aircraft which will be equipped with powerful digital cameras.  American intelligence and military sources have warned that such flights will help Moscow gather intelligence about the United States.

Russia and the US have both signed the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows making observation flights with aircraft with no weapons over the territories of all 34 …

In an open letter to the leaders of PARNAS and the Yabloko Party, prominent Russian public figures, human rights activists, and scholars called on the two parties to unite in the forthcoming State Duma elections. The activists published a second appeal to the general public, calling on them to support such cooperation. Both were published together in Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday, February 23rd.

The authors expressed alarm over the impending chaos in Russia due to the current political …

The Tartu District Court in Estonia has convicted three people for crimes against the state.  The Public Prosecutor’s office reported that all three convicts “illegally cooperated with Russian intelligence services”.

According to Interfax, two sentences were passed in October 2015 and the third one was passed last week.

In February, Maxim Gruzdev, a 32-year-old Estonian citizen, was sentenced to four years in prison.  He was recruited in the second half of 2013 in the Pskov region.  Before he …

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili will visit Baku in March. According to the press service of the State Committee for Work with the Diaspora (GKRD) of Azerbaijan, the Georgian President will attend the fourth Global Baku Forum, organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center.

The forum, entitled “Towards a Multipolar World”, will take place on March 10th and 11th.  Discussion in Baku will be center around the role of interreligious dialogue in conflict prevention, migration, …

The Governor of Odessa, Mikhail Saakashvili, stated that his ambitions in Ukraine are not limited to the post of Prime Minister.

According to the politician, his goal is “to establish new rules of the game and to involve a new generation of the political elite.” He also noted in an interview with the Rustavi 2 channel in Georgia that Ukraine is now exploring the same path as Georgia had before the Rose Revolution.

Saakashvili also noted that he would begin to be more active and start meeting …

According to intelligence reports, on the 19th of February, nine servicemen of the Gorlovka 3rd separate motorized rifle brigade submitted resignation requests, stating that they would "return to Russia". The Defense Intelligence asserted that with regard to mass resignations, the staffing of personnel in the brigade subdivisions must not exceed 50%.  In addition, in the Novoazovsk 9th separate motorized rifle regiment reported that resignation requests were issued by almost all junior …

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves believes that under the current conditions, the Russia- NATO Founding Act from 1997 is obsolete, as he stated in the interview with Eesti Päevaleht. According to him, the agreement provided for a permanent but limited presence of NATO forces in the newly formed states of the former Soviet Union, but it did not envision the current security situation. “It includes language that under the current and expected security situation the permanent forces will not …

The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine has established a working group to restore broadcasting in the south of the Kherson region and to Crimea.  This was reported by the Press Service of the Ministry.

The group was created "for the purpose of protecting the informational space and the informational sovereignty in the south of the country".  The group is headed by Crimean citizen and Member of the National Council of Television and Radio broadcasting of Ukraine, …