
Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles

Presidential Election Campaign Starts in Mongolia
Three Mongolian political parties with seats in the current parliament have nominated their candidates for the country’s sixth presidential election, which is scheduled for June 26, 2013, under the 1992 constitution. After the completion of administrative and legal background checks, the General Election Commission formally... MORE

Arrest of Makhachkala Mayor Likely to Increase Volatility in Dagestan
As the details of the arrest of the mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov, continue to emerge, experts predict a dangerous power vacuum in the republic. Amirov was arrested by Russian special forces at his home in Makhachkala on June 1 in a military-style operation. According... MORE

Turkish Turmoil Adds Unpredictability to Putin’s Creeping Coup
The explosion of public protests in Istanbul makes a strong but ambivalent impression on the development of the vacillating political crisis in Russia; the state-controlled Russian television channels prefer to give them minimal and unsympathetic coverage, focusing instead on the flooding in Prague or tornadoes... MORE

China as Tajikistan’s ‘Lender of Last Resort’
On May 19–20, the President of Tajikistan Emomalii Rahmon paid a state visit to China where he had talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and with several heads of Chinese state corporations. Rahmon’s official visit resulted in several multi-million-dollar investment projects in the infrastructure,... MORE

Will the West, East or the Far East Shape Belarus’s Future?
The existential reality of Belarus, squeezed between Russia and the European Union, is its crucial dependency on external geopolitical factors. If anything, the recent slump in Belarus’s exports exacerbates this dependency. In the first quarter of 2013, exports decreased by 20.5 percent compared with the... MORE

Moscow Decides to Implement Chechen Blueprint in Dagestan
Dagestan is interesting not only because it is the largest republic of the region, but also because it has by far the strongest Salafist armed resistance in the North Caucasus. That is why every political event in this North Caucasian republic becomes an important topic... MORE

Kumtor Gold Mine Protests and Unrest Rock Kyrgyzstan
The notorious spring season in Kyrgyzstan was again marked by intensified protest activity this year. On May 31, protesters demanding the nationalization of the locally-based Kumtor gold mine clashed with security forces in a northern district of Jeti-Oguz of the Issyk-Kul province in what was... MORE

Latest Killing of Chechen Separatist Envoy in Turkey Points to Russia
Against the background of the unfolding situation around the Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the killing in Florida of another Chechen connected to the brothers, Ibragim Todashev, the killing of a Chechen in Turkey... MORE

Snap Elections of City Mayor in Moscow
After several days of media speculation fueled by news leaks, Moscow City Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (54) announced he is resigning to seek reelection in a snap ballot on September 8, which under current Russian legislation is the only day in 2013 on which any regional... MORE

Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus Endorse Further Integration, but Obstacles Remain
On May 29, the presidents of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine met in Astana to participate in a scheduled meeting of the Supreme Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), established in 2001. Since Moscow, Minsk and Astana have lately been engaged in... MORE