One hundred years ago, World War I erupted on the European continent, ultimately leading to the fracturing and collapse of the multi-national Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian Empires. However, out of the rubble of the old Romanov state, the Bolsheviks managed to cobble together a... MORE

Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, who is also chairman of the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAK) and has chaired the Council of Heads of Security Agencies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries since 2008, has made another triumphant statement. He declared... MORE

The secessionist “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) leadership is experiencing even greater turmoil, compared with that of the adjacent “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) in Ukraine’s east. On August 14 the “head (glava) of the republic,” Valery Bolotov, returned to Luhansk after a Moscow visit and announced... MORE

On August 14–15, the “Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) government” and its military command underwent another recasting—the second within one week, while Ukrainian forces tighten the ring around the city of Donetsk. Colonel Igor Strelkov/Girkin, a hero to Russia’s nationalist public, has now been stripped of... MORE

Last month (July 2014), a World Bank assessment explicitly approved the technical, economic and social aspects of the construction of the planned Rogun hydropower plant (Rogun HPP). The conclusions vindicate Tajikistan, which has hoped to build this hydroelectric dam for years. Uzbekistan, on the other... MORE

With the approach of the 15th anniversary of the Islamic militants’ incursion into Dagestan in 1999, it appears that the militants have only grown stronger since then, and their activities have become a daily routine in the republic. August in Dagestan began with a bombing... MORE

At the end of July, Ukrainian border guards reported three instances of reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Transnistria violating Ukrainian air space (korrespondent.net, August, 1). The drones were seen over the administrative border area between Ukraine’s regions of Odessa and Vinnitsya, as well as... MORE

President Vladimir Putin gathered Duma deputies, national Security Council permanent members, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev—almost the entire Russian ruling elite—in Yalta, Crimea, to give a speech and a Q & A session on external and internal policies. The fighting in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas... MORE

Hasan Khalkechev, a Karachay activist and member of the Council of Turkic peoples, criticized the authorities of Karachaevo-Cherkessia for taking over Karachay civil organizations and stalling political and economic progress in the republic. Like neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria, the authorities in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, instead of fighting the opposition,... MORE

On July 31, the international Contact Group, which aims to resolve the crisis in Ukraine (see EDM, July 18), met in Zaslavl, Belarus. It was attended by former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, some representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s... MORE