A quick glimpse could lead one to conclude that Georgian-Russian relations are truly improving. After an April 16 meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian prime minister’s special representative for relations with Moscow, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin both sounded highly... MORE

On the morning of April 17, Dagestani parliamentary deputy Musa Islavov was killed on Babayurt Road in the city of Khasavyurt by unidentified assailants who fired at his car before fleeing the crime scene. The deputy was killed on the spot while his driver, 45-year-old... MORE

On April 11, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appointed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin as chairman of the Russian part of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation with Azerbaijan. The news arrived as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security... MORE

According to the March 2014 national survey by the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), the most reputable Belarusian polling firm funded by the West and registered in Lithuania, the electoral rating of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has climbed five percentage points since December... MORE

Mustafa Cemilev, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and leader of the Crimean Tatar movement, says that Kyiv will seek membership in the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC—formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference), a move that could help Ukraine rally support in the... MORE

The agreement to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis, signed at a meeting last week in Geneva by top foreign policy executives of Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, failed to decrease tensions and prevent further escalation (see EDM, April 17). The armed pro-Russian... MORE

The last stop of US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on his ten-day trip to Hawaii and Asia was to landlocked Mongolia. His short visit on April 10 featured charming photo-ops of his unique gift from the Mongolian government—a buff-colored horse that he named “Shamrock.”... MORE

On March 31, a Russian Joint Staff official, Lieutenant General Vasiliy Tonkoshkurov, made a surprise statement about the country’s conscription campaign at a press conference on the spring 2014 military draft campaign in Russia. During the event Tonkoshkurov announced that residents of the North Caucasus... MORE

Denials by Russia’s political-military leadership concerning alleged military involvement in eastern Ukraine are unsurprising and bear a resemblance to the official line on Crimea, until President Vladimir Putin recently confirmed their use. However, certain aspects of these official denials may shed some light on Moscow’s... MORE

The chief of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, stated at an April 9 meeting of the Russian security services and law enforcement agencies that the FSB thwarted a terrorist attack during the Winter Olympics in Sochi. “The prevention of the attack... MORE