With the signing of a new friendship and cooperation treaty at a bilateral summit in Yekaterinburg on November 11, Russia and Kazakhstan aimed to move their relations to a new phase, but tensions related to regional integration evidently remain. Two weeks earlier in Minsk, Kazakhstani... MORE

The ethnically charged riots in the Moscow suburb of Biryulyovo in early October, as well as the resulting case of Orkhan Zeynalov—an Azerbaijani citizen charged with sparking the violence—have electrified Azerbaijani society and become sources of anti-Kremlin feelings in the South Caucasus country. On October... MORE

On November 16, the Russian security services reported the killing in Dagestan of Dmitry Sokolov, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam who was suspected of masterminding the female suicide bombing in the Russian city of Volgograd in October. According to Russian media reports, the security... MORE

October–November 2013 witnessed a series of concerted Russian actions designed to express Moscow’s anger at the ballistic missile defense (BMD) program being implemented by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). First, President Vladimir Putin dissolved the Russia-NATO task force for cooperation... MORE

On November 1, the fourth session of the Kazakhstani-Kyrgyzstani Intergovernmental Council met in Bishkek. The meeting sought to realize the agenda articulated by Kazakhstani Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov, who noted “the mutual desire of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to address urgent issues on water and the... MORE

The resignation, after November 17, of Georgia’s chief prosecutor, Archil Kbilashvili, was to be expected: all top officials in the government will have to step down following the inauguration of the newly elected president, Giorgi Margvelashivili (https://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26665). According to the Georgian constitution, after the new... MORE

The Croatian authorities’ pressures on Hungarian MOL (see EDM, November 14) are not a novel development. In 2011, the government (led by the Croatian Democratic Union at that time) imposed a legal cap on MOL’s stake in INA at 49 percent. When the European Union’s... MORE

As a comprehensive assault on the jihadist movement in the North Caucasus gains momentum in Russia, Russian authorities are creating an additional superficial hurdle for themselves that is becoming more acute every day—the attitude toward the hijab. The issue of Islamic dress for women would... MORE

The conflict between the Russian Investigative Committee and the Chechen authorities has come to forefront of late. News of this conflict started to circulate in connection to the unexpected resignation of one of the best known Chechens in the Russian government, Vladislav Surkov, from the... MORE

The Croatian government and the Hungarian MOL oil and gas group have entered into negotiations over the future of INA, the main oil and gas company in Croatia and the largest business entity in the country. MOL (itself Hungary’s largest business group, 25 percent state-owned)... MORE