Since this summer, rumors have swirled that Moscow plans to create a Bessarabian People’s Republic on the territory of Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast. Some analysts have suggested that this would allow Moscow to build a bridge to the Transnistria region in Moldova and cut off Ukraine... MORE

In the first ten months of 2014, the industrial output index in Dagestan grew by 139.8 percent—record industrial growth among Russia’s regions. Moreover, in 2013, the republic’s industrial output index grew by an enviable 137.5 percent. These astonishing figures for the economically depressed republic led... MORE

The annexation of Crimea and the hybrid war with Russia that ensued have changed the Ukrainian government’s attitude toward the domestic military industry. Consequently, Ukraine’s arms production sector is likely to cease being an export-oriented industry that depended on Russia and exploited the fame of... MORE

According to a new Russian law, beginning on January 1, 2015, citizens of Tajikistan wishing to enter Russia will no longer be able to use their domestic passports, but will instead need to produce an international passport, a diplomatic passport or a seafarer’s identity document.... MORE

“We have been flying with one wing and we badly need to engage the other one,” President Alyaksandr Lukashenka once quipped, in reference to Belarus’s asymmetric international engagements—too much with Russia, too little with the West. The imbalance, of course, is still there and so... MORE

Rarely a week passes in Dagestan without the authorities launching a new special operation against militants. Some weeks, several special operations take place across the republic. In most instances, these law enforcement actions are based upon information received from Russian moles planted in the ranks... MORE

Russia frequently seeks to reroute oil and gas pipelines and railway routes in order to bypass those neighboring countries that it hopes to put pressure on. In turn, the West puts forth competing pipeline and transit corridors whose aim is to allow these same countries... MORE

On November 20, President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of the Russian Security Council to discuss and approve a draft Strategy for Countering Extremism in the Russian Federation Through 2025. This new security document offers additional indications that countering “color revolutions” has moved center stage... MORE

On November 18, Russian and regional analysts in Karachaevo-Cherkessia discussed the striking difference between two neighboring and quite similar republics, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. While Kabardino-Balkaria has seen the rise of a militant insurgency in recent years, Karachaevo-Cherkessia has managed to remain fairly quiet, even though... MORE

On November 20, Russian-occupied South Ossetia’s (Tskhinvali region) separatist regime declared that it is negotiating a new “comprehensive agreement on integration” with Russia, which will raise the relationship between the two sides to a “qualitatively new level,” especially in the military sphere (regnum.ru, November 20).... MORE