Vladimir Rozanskij

Thanks to Putin's mediation, prospects for the region's economic revival are reopening. Russian soldiers to de-mine the territories and the rebuild the interrupted routes. Pašinyan did not obtain the return of prisoners. Internal opposition is growing.

Elected with almost 80% of the votes, he is considered an unjustly accused political prisoner. On his release from prison, he became prime minister and then acted as president. Some call him "the Kyrgyz Trump". A referendum has decreed that Kyrgyzstan becomes a presidential republic. Parliamentary elections also in Kazakhstan, with an obvious victory for the Nur Otan party, the former president - but perennial leader - Nursultan Nazarbaev.

Government attempts to curb the growth of the Islamic Revival Party, already branded "terrorist" in 2015. Donier Nabiev, 87, was sentenced to 5 years in prison; Dzhaloliddin Mahmud to 6 and a half years old. Trials held behind closed doors and sentences handed down without readings.

Go ahead to inquiry after numerous delays, the most recent last week. The team of experts will cooperate with Chinese doctors. It is not clear whether the mission will be able to visit Wuhan and meet the doctors who first raised the alarm, only to be censored by the regime. One of them, Ai Fen, reappears after months of being missing with health problems.

The Armenian president is in solitary confinement with severe symptoms of COVID-19. Total cases have reached 161,415 with 361 in one day at last count. Under Russian military protection, 50,000 Armenian refugees have returned to Nagorno-Karabakh in recent weeks. For Putin, the Turkish president is a man who does everything for the good of his country. Patriarch Kirill blames Patriarch Bartholomew for Hagia Sophia’s use as a mosque.

Two lawmakers from Putin's party question Kazakhstan’s right to its northern territories, sparking an irate response from the Kazakh foreign minister, slamming Russia for the famine of the 1920s. Former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is awarded the Orthodox Order of Gratitude.

Despite the start of vaccinations, death from COVID-19 still haunts the Russian Orthodox clergy. Orthodox Church leaders are disappointed by the failure of many to respect health guidelines during Christmas services. Putin visited the church on Lipno Island, a place of great value in the country's Christian history.

The new apostolic administrator of Minks was auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Pinsk and he turned 75 last May. He too is a witness of the "silent" Church of the Soviet years. He attended clandestine seminaries and was a personal friend of the former Metropolitan of Minsk-Mogilev. He kept the faith of several villages alive, touring three Russian provinces to meet and support the faithful. He committed himself to reconstruction, to the fall of communism.

There will soon be parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Authoritarianism grew during the pandemic, as did domestic violence and suicides. Tajikistan prepares for Shanghai-Five, grouping China and Russia, as well as India and Pakistan. A region in transformation 30 years after the end of the Soviet empire.

Pope Francis accepted his resignation yesterday, the day the prelate turned 75. The Belarusian archbishop was one of the main engines of the Catholic revival in the ex-Soviet world. For February 11-12, Lukashenko called a "Pan-Belarusian" Assembly with the aim of changing the constitution. The opposition: a show.

More and more Kazakhs flee Xinjiang and forced labour camps, and are welcomed by Nur-Sultan as refugees. The crossroads between "nationalism" and "cultural expansionism". Enthusiasm cools for the “Belt and Road Initiative”, the New Silk Road.

He instigated his faithful to resist the "forces of the Antichrist": the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church and the Covid propagandists. For Sergij, the "pseudo-pandemic" is an invention of the Antichrist to imprison believers in "Satan’s electronic concentration camp". The police stormed the Sredneuralsk monastery where the monk was barricaded along with hundreds of nuns. He is accused of pushing even children to commit suicide.