On September 2, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili released an eight-page “open letter to the public” in which he outlines the reasons for why he intends to leave the position of head of government before the expiration of his term. Ivanishvili said he needs to... MORE

A political movement in Stavropol region is gearing up for the establishment of a Russian republic in this ethnic Russian–majority territory, thereby emulating the ethnically non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus. The first conference of the Slavs of Stavropol, also known as the Russian People’s... MORE

Hardly any feeling of political resolution exists in Russia after the two events that focused attention and expectations for the whole summer: the G20 summit in St. Petersburg and the mayoral elections in Moscow. Russia’s chairmanship in the fledgling G20 was supposed to demonstrate its... MORE

On the morning of August 27, the secretary of Ingushetia’s Security Council, Akhmed Kotiev, was killed when unidentified attackers fired shots at his car in the vicinity of the town Nizhnie Achaluki as he was on his way to his office (https://www.infox.ru/accident/crime/2013/08/27/Ubit_syekryetar_Sovb.phtml). His driver was... MORE

On August 1, Russian police raided the “Sadoved” market in the Kapotny region of Moscow and arrested close to 1,000 people, primarily Vietnamese traders who were in the country illegally. The traders were detained in a camp in the Golovino region of eastern Moscow, which... MORE

The Russian Navy has decided to deploy three ships stationed at the base in Sevastopol on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula to its reestablished Mediterranean flotilla. In particular, on September 4, Moscow deployed the destroyer Smetliviy (https://www.interfax.ru/world/news.asp?id=326972). Some Sevastopol-based ships actually sailed for the Mediterranean via Novorossiysk,... MORE

President Serzh Sargsyan has decided that Armenia should join the Russia-led blocs, the Customs Union and the Eurasian Union, as part of a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sargsyan unveiled this decision to his own country from Moscow, alongside Putin, on September 3, and... MORE

The Georgian authorities’ decision to dismantle a mosque minaret in the village of Chela on August 26 triggered an incident in the Samtskhe-Javakheti and Adjara regions where tensions between Christians and Muslims have surfaced for the first time in many decades (https://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26386). Locals said that... MORE

On September 3, in Moscow, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia jointly sank Armenia’s association, trade and visa liberalization agreements with the European Union, which were due to be concluded at the Vilnius summit in November.  Instead, Sargsyan announced his decision... MORE

During the last two weeks of August, practically all the residents of Chechnya were busy voting for the republic’s main mosque, called the “Heart of Chechnya,” in the competition for Russia’s top ten landmarks (https://10russia.ru/rules). The contest was launched in March and will conclude at... MORE