United Russia brought a bill before the Duma for a first reading on January 23, 2013, that would permit regional legislatures to cancel direct gubernatorial elections for the “multi-ethnic” regions of Russia. Instead, parties in regional legislatures would pick three candidates each and present them... MORE

Iran has accepted Kazakhstan’s offer to host the next round of its nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 group (all five permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany) (Trend, February 4). Citing a desire to reduce regional tensions and avert an escalation of the nuclear... MORE

On January 30, a conference on the influence of the Caucasus Emirate in the Volga region took place in Kazan (https://scienceport.ru/). Participants in the conference discussed issues related to the religious influence of the Northern Caucasus on the indigenous Muslim population of the Volga Region... MORE

One of the least noted aspects of the just completed meeting of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church may prove to be the most significant and explosive of all. In his speech to the Sobor, a formal gathering of Orthodox... MORE

Russian authorities reiterated, on January 22, pledges of increased economic engagement with Central Asia. The foreign ministry advocated plans to develop economic and trade ties with the region, while other officials urged the creation of a Russian state corporation that would encourage economic development there... MORE

In January, security forces in Tajikistan arrested several suspected members of The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in Tajikistan’s northern Sughd province (BBC Tajiki, January 28). On January 14, police in Konibodom district pulled over a vehicle for a routine traffic stop. But the driver... MORE

On January 17, during his visit to Armenia, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili stated that “Armenia provides a good example for Georgia, and it can be a source of envy in a positive sense,” for managing to have good relations with Russia and at the... MORE

While the new president of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, is busy looking for an “honest minister of education” (www.yuga.ru/news/285954/), the republic appears to have ignored the change in the leadership. In fact, the people who were dismissed by the previous president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, have already returned... MORE

According to Russian diplomatic sources, during a meeting last weekend in Munich on the sidelines of the annual international security conference, United States Vice President Joseph Biden assured Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Washington wants to put bilateral relations “back on track” after a... MORE

More than 20 years after independence, Ukraine’s security forces are over-manned, incompetent and largely remain neo-Soviet in their operating culture. On January 18, the prosecutor’s office accused former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of being in league with Pavlo Lazarenko (prime minister in 1996–1997) for the... MORE