On August 7, the leader of the united insurgent movement of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Khasanbi Fakov, was killed in Kabardino-Balkaria’s capital Nalchik. The 34-year-old Fakov was on Russia’s federal wanted list for allegedly staging numerous attacks on law enforcement personnel. The road police stopped a... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a one-day working visit to Azerbaijan on August 13, his first visit to that country since 2006. Two warships of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla anchored in the port of Baku on August 12, demonstrating military muscle (as in 2006) as an... MORE

Pro-Moscow activists and commentators have been universally critical of Tatarstan’s new nationality policy concept, a document adopted on August 1, which defines Kazan as the chief protector of Tatar national culture and of ethnic Tatars wherever they live (see EDM, August 6). The more moderate... MORE

The European Commission encourages Slovakia to emulate Hungary and Poland transiting natural gas supplies from Western Europe to Ukraine. Such deliveries involve re-exporting gas volumes and reverse-using transit systems. Following German RWE Supply & Trading, some other European companies may well also consider selling gas... MORE

In the aftermath of the military exercise in the Russian Far East on July 13, aimed at testing combat readiness and combat service support, Defense Minister Army-General Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin that the figure for the future numbers of contract soldiers (kontraktniki) must... MORE

Last week, Georgia marked the five-year anniversary of the start of the short military conflict with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The conflict ended in Georgia’s defeat and the recognition of the independence of its former autonomies by the Russian Federation. The mourning ceremonies... MORE

To reduce its dependence on Gazprom’s supply monopoly, Ukraine has recently initiated the procurement of natural gas from European gas-trading companies. RWE (Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Elektrizitaetswerk, Germany’s second-largest energy conglomerate) has become the first major European company to deliver gas to Ukraine (see EDM, April 1).The European... MORE

On August 7, the acting head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, and other republican officials met a group of residents of the embattled Dagestani village of Gimry. The Dagestani government proposed a deal with the villagers’ leaders that should end the settlement’s suspended status. The authorities... MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s visit to Washington last Friday could have repaired some damage from the predictably canceled presidential summit in Moscow, but the meeting failed to produce any substance for bilateral relations, which had deteriorated beyond the point... MORE

It used to be said in the region that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are one nation that speaks different languages. However, over the past several years, animosity between the two has been growing.To an outsider, the grievances of either government directed against the other sound reasonable.... MORE