The United States’ muted profile in mineral-rich, landlocked Mongolia receded even more in 2014. Indeed, the US has largely stood by while Mongolia deliberately integrated its faltering economy closer with its two neighbors, China and Russia. Last year, top-level Mongolian officials met with Chinese President... MORE

The unrest and ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine seriously impacts coal supplies and thermal power electricity generation in the rest of the country. On December 28, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry to halt rolling power blackouts, adding that... MORE

In December 2014, Russian legislators quietly passed new legislation that allows Moscow to remove part of the region from under the control of that region’s government in order “to speed up socio-economic development” in the North Caucasus republics. As a Dagestani analyst Rasul Kadiev points... MORE

No one was more encouraged by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military moves in Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) than the leaders of Transnistria. This breakaway Slavic-dominated region in northeastern Moldova viewed Moscow’s actions as opening the way to the... MORE

Late in 2014, Russian state oil company Rosneft acquired 49 percent of the Georgian company Petrocas Energy Group, which owns a strategically important oil terminal at the port of Poti and Georgia’s most extensive network of gas stations, branded as Gulf (Rosneft.com, December 29, 2014).... MORE

The collapse of the nominal ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, marked by an escalation of military operations around Donetsk airport, has resulted in a fresh diplomatic confrontation between Moscow and Kyiv. Both sides blame each other for the increased violence, while the Kremlin claims that this... MORE

The revelations of Alexander Sytnik, who recently left his position as a senior fellow at the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, a government-funded think tank, provides a rare glimpse into the inner mechanisms of policymaking in Russia. In his personal account of the run-up to... MORE

The most talked about subject in Kabardino-Balkaria so far in 2015 is the prison sentences passed handed down to the militants who participated in the insurrection in the republican capital in 2005. On October 13 of that year, groups of militants under the command of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Local ataman (historically, a Cossack leader) rule proliferates in the power vacuum of the “Luhansk People’s republic” (LPR). Russian forces seized this area from... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Outside Luhansk City and its environs, the “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) territory is splintered into de facto fiefdoms and portions of no man’s land. Each fiefdom has its own ataman (leader)... MORE