On July 13 a Minsk court sentenced former presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin to five and one-half years of confinement. The verdict, while unwarranted and harsh, also raises some questions about the outlook of the Lukashenka regime. Why was Kazulin singled out for such treatment at... MORE

In recent weeks, more and more political parties, members of the intelligentsia, and media outlets have begun to criticize the haphazard, chaotic construction boom in Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku. Increasing oil revenues and the growing demand for new apartments have turned the city into a... MORE

On Monday, July 17, Imam Yaraliev, prosecutor-general for Dagestan, announced his resignation. His deputy, Murad Kekhlerov, will take the post until the Russian prosecutor-general appoints a replacement. Yaraliev had been regarded as a highly corrupt official. According to information from the Dagestani prosecutor’s office, Yaraliev... MORE

Although the Russian press regularly rebukes the West for double standards regarding terrorism, such as supporting the insurgents in Chechnya, media outlets have not pointed out that Moscow is taking a similar stance regarding the current Middle East crisis. Western reports clearly indicate that Hezbollah,... MORE

Two forgeries now circulating in Europe and North America bear the classic imprint of Soviet disinformation, presented, however, in modern-looking packaging developed by Modest Kolerov’s department of the presidential administration in the Kremlin. One of these forgeries attempts to portray Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as... MORE

On Tuesday, July 18, the Georgian parliament passed a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The resolution, adopted overwhelmingly amid harsh anti-Russian rhetoric, declares that Russia’s so-called peacekeeping operation itself poses a major obstacle to a political settlement... MORE