Following the killing of the Ingush jamaat’s amir in Nazran on August 31, the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat also experienced a major setback. The Russian security services managed to kill Robert Zankishiev, who was better known among the armed Islamist underground movement of the North Caucasus as... MORE

Since the 1990s, Moscow has repeatedly looked beyond Russia’s borders and pledged to come to the assistance of its allegedly victimized fellow Russian citizens, or ethnic Great Russians, or Russian speakers (all three categories apply whenever Moscow finds it desirable to play this card). Transnistria,... MORE

The Ukrainian national oil and gas company, Naftohaz Ukrainy, plans to sue Russia over the assets lost in Crimea following the peninsula’s annexation by Russia last year, Naftohaz CEO Andry Kobolev said on November 4 (Interfax, November 4). The seizure by Russia of Chornomornaftohaz, Naftohaz’s... MORE

On October 31, government forces killed the leader of the Ingush jamaat, Beslan Makhauri, better known as Amir Muhammad. Makhauri was killed along with another insurgent, named Ilyas Vedzizhev, in the central market of the city of Nazran (Interfax, October 31). One strange thing about... MORE

President Vladimir Putin spent this past week vacationing in Sochi, just as this southwestern Russian coastal city was hit by an autumn storm and heavy rain. Russian government officials were forced to struggle to reach Sochi despite local flash floods because the president likes to... MORE

In early November, journalists and analysts convened in Tallinn, Estonia, for the fifth annual meeting of the “Rubicon” conference fully devoted to issues pertaining to Belarus. This year, the major topic was “Belarus as a factor of regional security and stability.” The participants were unable... MORE

Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted a meeting of his Russian, French, and Ukrainian counterparts (“Normandy” group), on November 6, in Berlin, to lift the December deadline on the implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This move, a foregone conclusion, may turn the... MORE

In an interview with the website Kavkazskaya Politika, Kabardino-Balkaria’s Deputy Interior Minister Kazbek Tatuev described the republic’s ongoing security dilemmas. According to the official, the underground movement in the republic is structured according to administrative divisions featuring an amir and his deputies (naibs) in each... MORE

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