Good rainfall in April and a positive start to the spring sowing campaign have prompted Ukraine’s Economy Ministry to forecast a bumper grain crop of 75 million tonnes in 2021.

The well-funded agitation to derail a hydro project in Georgia has the potential to ruin the country's reputation, and severely damage relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Uzbekistan’s state-owned carmaker UzAuto Motors plans to issue $300 million of Eurobonds to tap international financial markets.

The IMF said it expected Armenia's economy to expand by around 1 percent in 2021 followed by 3.5 percent growth next year, although the recovery will be protracted due to the impact of  the coronavirus pandemic and war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The buildup had spawned widespread speculation that the Kremlin was preparing a wide scale invasion. It already controls large parts of eastern Ukraine – the Donbass region – via proxies it supports militarily and financially.

Kazakhstan has flooded international TV channels with flashy advertisements trumpeting the country’s investment climate.