Historic ties between Russia and Serbia are deepening even as the European Union attempts to improve its own relationship with Belgrade. Since the beginning of the year, Russia has sought to increase its trade with Serbia, while the latter has pursued Russian assistance in upgrading... MORE

The three small Muslim communities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have had good relations both with the rest of the populations and the governments of these three Baltic countries. But the influx of refugees from Syria and the wider Middle East to Europe is now... MORE

Meeting on November 6, in Berlin, the ministers of foreign affairs of the “Normandy” group (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) finally acknowledged that the Minsk armistice cannot be implemented by this year’s end, as originally intended. They agreed to postpone the implementation into next year, without... MORE

Russia’s air operations in Syria have triggered speculation concerning Moscow’s objectives, the length of the campaign, as well as the levels of planning involved. On the one hand, Russia’s information campaign describes a limited engagement, which boosts domestic support for the intervention. The Kremlin fears... MORE

The leader of Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev, arrived in Georgia, on November 5, for a two-day official visit (Vestnik Kavkaza, November 5). This was Aliyev’s first trip to Tbilisi in a decade, and the talks he held there with Georgian officials were particularly tense. Cooperation... MORE

Russian experts have reacted to the recent establishment of a group in the Ukrainian parliament called “For the Free Caucasus.” One of them, Vladislav Gulevich, has predicted that the Ukrainian political forces that want to detach the North Caucasus from Russia will fail because Ukraine... MORE

The now-annual extreme-nationalist “Russian March” in Lublino (a working-class district in Moscow, populated mostly by ethnic Slavs), on November 4—National Unity Day—saw a sharply reduced number of marchers this year. Last Wednesday’s march in the Russian capital had only about 700 participants, whereas previous years’... MORE

The West’s major centers of power—the European Union and the United States—have recently announced significant adjustments to their Belarus policies; and the underpinnings and implications of those changes are now being hotly debated by the Belarusian opposition and anti-regime analysts and commentators. In particular, the... MORE

Another name has been added to the list of Chechens killed outside Russia: Abdulvakhid Edilgeriev was shot dead last month in Istanbul’s Kayasehir district, which many Chechens have made their home. The murder took place in broad daylight—at about 1:30 p.m., on October 1. The... MORE

On October 22, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the creation of a new Russian military base in the Arctic. This base will be located either on the Novosibirsk Islands or on Franz Joseph Land, and it will allow for 150 troops to live continuously on... MORE