Tsnelisi-Chorchana Crisis: Facts, Details and Chronology

By Tornike Zurabashvili

The decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia to set up an observation post between the village of Chorchana in the Khashuri municipality and the village of Tsnelisi in the Russian-held Tskhinvali Region/ South Ossetia in August 2019 caused weeks of crisis at the occupation line. The situation did not escalate into an open confrontation but the high concentration of armed security actors significantly deteriorated the security environment on the ground.

“Armenia first”: behind the rise of Armenia’s alt-right scene

by Armen Grigoryan

Armenia’s 2018 revolution may have pushed a kleptocratic regime out of power, but today the country’s conservative agenda is radicalising under new conditions.

Tearing apart: what drives political polarisation in Georgia?

Lessons learnt from the 2018 Presidential elections

By Tornike Zurabashvili

Tornike Zurabashvili is an independent political analyst based in Tbilisi, Georgia. From December 2016 through June 2019, he edited Civil.ge, Georgia’s leading English-language daily news and analytical platform. He is currently a fellow at the Eurasia Democratic Security Network.

Zelenskiy faces tough choices amidst high expectations

By Maryna Vorotnyuk

On April 21, Ukraine held the second round of presidential elections where Ukrainian citizens had to choose between the incumbent president Petro Poroshenko and the popular comedian-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelenskiy. With 73 percentof the vote, Zelenskiy secured a landslide victory across an absolute majority of Ukrainian regions. Zelenskiy is widely believed to reflect the voices of so-called “protest voters” – those who are dissatisfied with the way the state, from the economy to the public sector, is performing. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose political and ideological preferences remained intentionally vague, rode in on a wave of public dissatisfaction with incumbent President Petro Poroshenko. He offered himself as an anti-system alternative – honest and unstained by political experience. Although he is allegedly supported by powerful Ukrainian oligarch and Poroshenko’s arch-rival Igor Kolomoisky, Ukrainian voters obviously believed that Zelenskiy was the lesser of two evils.

COMMENT: Imitation Game – the theatre and risks of the Karabakh peace process

By Tigran Grigoryan

After the democratic revolution in Armenia and the peaceful transition of power to the current government of Nikol Pashinian, regional experts and international observers have expressed cautious optimism about the prospects for progress in Karabakh peace talks. While many of the signs are encouraging, and represent a welcome change from the region’s more typical foreboding, the underlying dynamics of the conflict remain unchanged—along with the extended spectre of war.