Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 – Tehran to Kyiv

Iran is in effect on a war footing with the United States (US). The US and Ukraine are key allies. Russia, occupying several regions of eastern Ukraine and having annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, is in effect at war with Kyiv. Ukraine International Airlines(UIA) flight PS752 flying between Tehran and Kyiv crashes shortly after…

Turkmenistan: Rumours of its Dead or Alive President Continue to Spin Around

The rumoured demise of Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow seem for the time being at least to be exaggerated although quite who(now established - see Jamestown Foundation source) fed the media what appears to be false news and why has yet to be established. What though can be gleaned from one of the world's most closed…

Democracy in Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, remains a relative term

Perhaps it can be put down to the presence of cameras (in Trilogy I) but that was one awkward meeting between Solzhenitsyn and Putin - the former later said he gained nothing from meeting various Russian presidents after his return to the country from Vermont. Whilst Putin is obviously one of those with whom he…

Turkmenistan: Caspian Sea agreement will benefit few of its beleaguered citizens

Urban Dictionary define the term "bananas" as ...something crazy, ridiculous. It is therefore highly appropriate that a country such as Turkmenistan, one with an unstable, North Korea-lite despot at the controls is in the process of growing its first ever crop of the yellow fruit. Whether the former Soviet republic can be described as a…

Turkmenistan: President Berdymukhamedow Raps while his Countrymen Sing for their Suppers

Fiddling while Rome burns has always been the preserve of emperor Nero, although the idiom that in effect describes a focus on the trivial while issues of greater importance are left unattended has been adopted on countless occasions by those, in modern parlance, who seek to control the controllables, rather than address the more pertinent…

Salisbury Poisoning: UK can Expect Few Favours from Serbia

The UK will in effect be crossing its own Rubicon should it take steps to request of Serbia that it denounce its Russian ally, in the wake of the Salisbury poisoning scandal. Moscow and Belgrade have long since forged impregnable ties, which have only strengthened during the perceived impression of anti-Slav bias from those seemingly…