Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles

VLADIMIR MILOV: PUTIN TRAPPED IN A FOROS OF HIS OWN MAKING

Russian political analysts and other observers are watching the power struggle inside Russia’s security and law-enforcement establishment. The conflict broke out into the open in early October with the arrest of the head of the operational department of the Federal Narcotics Control Service (FSKN), Lieutenant-General... MORE

EU REPORT TO PRESS TURKEY ON MINORITY RIGHTS

The European Commission’s annual Progress Report on Turkey’s candidacy for EU membership, which will be published tomorrow, November 6, will press Ankara to grant greater rights to the country’s ethnic and religious minorities, including its sizeable Kurdish community. The report will be made public amid... MORE

DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE IN MINSK

Today, November 2, members of the European diplomatic corps, including ambassadors and their families, will visit the mass burial site of Kurapaty, recalling the 70th anniversary of executions conducted by the Stalin regime in Belarus. This event follows closely upon the commemoration on October 28—the... MORE

ST. PETERSBURG POISONINGS: PART OF SILOVIKI FACTIONAL FIGHT?

An officer with the Federal Narcotics Control Service (FSKN) and a former colleague of his were recently found dead in St. Petersburg, the apparent victims of poisoning. If deliberate poisoning is confirmed, it would suggest that an under-the-carpet battle between rival Russian special services may... MORE

CHECHENS AMONG RUSSIAN “PEACEKEEPERS” DURING INCIDENT IN GEORGIA

On October 30 an APC-borne Russian “peacekeeping” unit attempted to take control of the Ganmukhuri youth camp, situated within Georgian-controlled territory near the Georgian-Abkhaz demarcation line. Firing warning shots the Russian soldiers disarmed, bound, and beat bloody the three Georgian policemen who guarded the youth... MORE

BEIJING RAISES STAKES IN TURKMEN GAS GAME

On October 31, oil trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange soared to a record-high $95.08 a barrel for December delivery before settling to $94.53. As the Western energy market has become increasingly jittery, China, now the world’s second-largest oil import market, has made its... MORE

RUSSIA STRUGGLES TO FINALIZE CASPIAN GAS PIPELINE DEAL WITH TURKMENISTAN

On October 26, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov and Gazprom deputy CEO Valery Golubev were reportedly in discussions about what the Turkmen presidential press service described as “issues of drafting inter-governmental agreements on the expansion of the existing gas transportation system in Central Asia and the... MORE