Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
The corridor through Armenia acquires a second cargo
Ilham Aliyev says the project to run power lines to Nakhchivan across Armenian territory is ready, and that large electricity exports will follow. A route agreed as a road and a railway is being loaded, on one side's drawings, with a grid.
Moscow answers Armenia's trade complaint with a calendar
Nikol Pashinyan named the Russian import restrictions at the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council on Friday. Russia replied on Tuesday. The reply came from the foreign ministry, and it carried three dates.
The Washington peace marks its first year in phone calls and freight
Nikol Pashinyan spent the anniversary of the 8 August 2025 Washington summit on the phone, first with Ilham Aliyev, then with Donald Trump. The operative line came in the second call: construction of the TRIPP corridor is to start “in the near future”.
Armenia brings the Russian import bans to the union's own table
Nikol Pashinyan told the four other governments of the Eurasian Economic Union on Friday that Russian restrictions on Armenian goods are feeding a negative view of the union inside Armenia. He came with figures: $319 million paid in during 2025, $175 million received back.
Three agreements and one grievance arrive at Issyk-Kul
The 47th Eurasian Intergovernmental Council opens in Cholpon-Ata on Thursday with three agreements prepared for signature and a warning from Yerevan already on the record.
The premiers follow the presidents to the lake
The EAEU’s heads of government meet in Cholpon-Ata on 6 and 7 August, the Kyrgyz cabinet confirmed on Tuesday, giving the same shore its second summit inside a week. For Nikol Pashinyan it would be a first multilateral room since his reappointment, three days after his cabinet was re-decreed.
Armenia’s cabinet comes back in a day with one new name
Eleven of twelve ministers returned to their chairs on Monday, the day after Nikol Pashinyan’s reappointment; the one new face runs high-tech industry. The parliament’s new speaker is Ruben Rubinyan, the man who has led the normalization talks with Turkey.
Pashinyan is reappointed the day his government resigns
Armenia’s new National Assembly convened on Sunday morning; the same day the government resigned by force of the constitution and President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed Nikol Pashinyan back in.
A cable starts across the Caspian floor
Laying of the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan fibre-optic cable began on Friday from Baku toward Aktau, Kazakhstan’s digital development ministry said, with 15 to 20 days of marine work ahead and commissioning promised by the end of the year.
Pashinyan calls the union paralyzed
Armenia’s prime minister said on Thursday the Eurasian Economic Union is “de facto paralyzed”, his hardest wording since Russia began closing its market to Armenian goods in May. The union’s core promise, free movement of goods, is now disputed in public by one of its five members.
Bishkek signs its second alliance in two days
Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan signed a Treaty on Allied Relations at Cholpon-Ata on Friday morning, a day after Bishkek concluded a treaty of the same rank with Tashkent. Two alliances in two days make the lakeshore summit a working one.
The western workaround acquires statistics at Batumi
Batumi port moved more than 4 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, up 8%, its press service said on 30 July. The port and its oil terminal are run by KazTransOil’s Georgian subsidiary, which makes the figure a Kazakh number as much as a Georgian one.
The ADB puts $250 million into the road around Tbilisi
The Asian Development Bank approved a $250 million loan on 30 July for an 18.9-kilometre four-lane bypass of the Georgian capital, framing it as freight relief on the corridor that links Central Asia to Europe.
The region’s diplomacy moves to a Kyrgyz lakeshore
Shavkat Mirziyoyev departed for Kyrgyzstan on Thursday morning on a state visit that runs into a Central Asia–Azerbaijan summit at Cholpon-Ata from 30 July to 1 August. Ilham Aliyev arrives on a state visit of his own.
Moscow answers Yerevan through its foreign intelligence service
A day after Pashinyan asked Putin to lift the export restrictions, the Kremlin briefing dealt with an EU referendum and the Foreign Intelligence Service issued four statements on what leaving the Eurasian Economic Union would cost Armenia.
The corridor and the war now share one sea
Peskov called the strikes in the Caspian extremely dangerous on Monday. In the same days, the first cargo to move under electronic TIR across three countries crossed that water from Baku to Turkmenbashi.
Pashinyan asks Putin to lift the export bans
Armenia’s prime minister raised the Russian restrictions with Putin by telephone on Monday, the day the dairy ban took effect, and told him they contradict both the bilateral treaty framework and the rules of the Eurasian Economic Union.
Armenia’s dairy ban takes effect
Russia’s restriction on Armenian dairy came into force on Monday. Yerevan’s food safety inspectorate says the joint inspection behind it found nothing of the kind.
One littoral state speaks about the Caspian
Turkmenistan called the attack on a vessel in the Caspian inadmissible and named nobody at all. Kyiv answered Tehran the same day, and Baku and Tehran shut each other’s broadcasters.