The Fight for Russia’s Borderlands

Both Kyiv and Moscow will use the escalating tensions in eastern Ukraine for their own political purposes, risking a calculated or unintended return to full confrontation.

In this episode of Baker's Dozen, host Rodger Baker speaks with Lasha Kasradze, a Eurasia analyst who specializes in the Caucasus about Georgia and the tentative geopolitical situation of the Greater Caucasus, where great powers and lesser powers have been jockeying for position.

Despite widespread outrage over the terms of last year’s peace deal with Azerbaijan, Armenia's intensifying political crisis is unlikely to spark a resumption of war.

The growing number of military and private actors in the increasingly accessible region is raising the risk of miscommunication or miscalculation.

In this podcast, Emily Donahue speaks to global security analyst, Sam Lichtenstein, about Belarus. Topics range from the contested presidential election in 2020; widely seen as fraudulent to how the president is seeking to shore up power and protestors are planning to seek the worlds attention in coming weeks and months.

The Belarussian president’s bid to retain power through constitutional reform and Russian support will probably revive anti-government protests, and risk a Russian-Western standoff.

Despite President Zelenskiy’s outreach, the White House is unlikely to grant meaningful support without Kyiv first demonstrating a more serious commitment to reforms.

Preserving the nuclear arms treaty will give Biden space to crack down on Moscow’s antagonistic behavior in other areas.

Armenia’s intensifying political crisis and the still-volatile situation in Nagorno-Karabakh leave the door open for future rounds of violence.