Something completely unexpected recently took place in Russia: a provincial court in Novorossiysk designated a Russian translation of the Koran as extremist material (https://echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1161702-echo/). The court’s decision stipulated that all copies of the publication should be confiscated and eliminated. The court based its decision on... MORE

Activists detained onboard the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise research icebreaker by the Federal Security Service special forces (FSB spetsnaz) on September 19, have been all handed two-month pre-trial detention sentences by Russian judges in Murmansk. The activists were protesting oil drilling by Gazprom in the southeastern... MORE

A joint declaration on strategic partnership was among several agreements that were signed following talks in Bishkek between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Kyrgyz Republic counterpart, Almazbek Atambaev, on September 11. Atambaev told reporters that the signed documents also include agreements on Chinese... MORE

A seemingly perpetual tension between Western universalism on human rights and down-to-earth geopolitics has no single resolution. With regard to Belarus, human rights remain preeminent albeit with the exception of the 2007–2010 period, during which a rapprochement between Brussels and Minsk was underway. But in... MORE

On September 21, Tatarstan’s Prosecutor General Kafil Amirov unexpectedly resigned. Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika signed the decree about Amirov’s resignation. On September 26, Ildus Nafikov, the prosecutor general of Tatarstan’s capital Kazan was appointed to replace Amirov. During a question-and-answer session with republican parliamentary... MORE

On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory message to Abkhazia’s authorities on the 20th anniversary of “the republic’s independence.” The anniversary marks the Abkhazian proclamation of independence in 1993, as Sukhumi fell to Russian military forces. “This holiday is a symbol of... MORE

Mongolian Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag’s September 11–14, 2013 trip to Japan, his first overseas visit since becoming head of government in 2012, underscored the new vibrancy in Mongolian-Japanese relations. This visit reciprocated the very successful one of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Ulaanbaatar in... MORE

Kazakhstan is considering adopting measures to modernize its security structures, though somewhat surprisingly this has nothing to do with Astana’s assessment of a possible impact on Central Asian security stemming from the drawdown of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan. The reasons for... MORE

Russia’s Muslims continue to be radicalized not only by developments within their own community but increasingly by events in the Middle East, according to Yana Amelina, an analyst who works for a Russian research group that has close ties with the Kremlin. Her views provide... MORE

On September 25, the deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s national space agency Kazkosmos, Erkin Shaimagambetov, officially announced his administration’s decision to allow Russia to carry out a new launch of its Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 30. The following day, Kazakhstan’s Environment Protection... MORE