
Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles

Silk Wind Project in Central Asia and South Caucasus Gains Speed
In recent months, Kazakhstan and Georgia have joined with Azerbaijan and Turkey to make considerable progress in their Silk Wind Project, which aims to construct a high-speed, multimodal container transportation system for freight shipments between the countries of Europe, the Caucasus and Asia. According to... MORE

Apparently Eying Another Term, Yevkurov Launches PR Campaign
The end of November was packed with events for the head of the small North Caucasusian republic of Ingushetia. On November 22–23, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov visited Kazakhstan, where he met people from the local Ingush diaspora. The Ingush diaspora came to existence in Kazakhstan following the... MORE

A Depressing Curtain for Russian Naval Power: Admiral Sergei Gorshkov Fails Her Sea Trials (Part Two)
In September 2012, Russia carried out sea trials of the retired Soviet-era heavy carrier “Sergei Gorshkov,” which it is retrofitting and selling to India. The results of the sea trial of the carrier, which the Indians will rechristen the Vikramaditya, ended in embarrassing failure and... MORE

Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the Martians
On November 26, Alyaksandr Lukashenka gave a 1.5-hour interview to Reuters. The text of the interview was published on the internet portal “Belorusskie Novosti” (https://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2012/11/27/ic_articles_112_180033/), but Lukashenka’s seemingly casual remark about Vladimir Putin “twisting his spine” during a recent bout of judo when “he lifted... MORE

Head of World Union of Muslim Scholars Visits Dagestan
Having failed to defeat the armed resistance, the Dagestani authorities decided to look for help by finding favorable interpretations of Sharia law among foreign scholars. The republican authorities certainly received official consent from Moscow for their quest abroad (https://russian.irib.ir/radioislam/2010-08-31-12-33-40/2010-09-09-08-01-11/item/156021-%D0%B2). Their efforts resulted in the condemnation... MORE

2010 Census Shows Fewer Russians, More Non-Russians, and Many Who No Longer Declare an Ethnic Identity At All
According to recent census results, the rate of the overall decline in the population of the Russian Federation nearly doubled during the past decade compared to the rate over the course of the 1990s, but that trend obscures rather than highlights three more important developments:... MORE

Serdyukov Has Been Disgraced, but His Reforms Will Continue
A month ago on November 6, President Vladimir Putin sacked Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, replacing him with Sergei Shoigu, a former long-time emergency situations minister (MChS), who was only last May appointed governor of the Moscow region. Russia’s top general—the first deputy defense minister and... MORE

ConocoPhillips’ Exit from Kashagan Revives Rivalries in Kazakhstan’s Oil Sector
On November 26, Kazakh media reported that the US oil company ConocoPhillips was planning to sell its 8.4-percent stake in Kazakhstan’s Kashagan oil field on the Caspian Sea. In the context of continuously falling revenues (in the third quarter of 2012, ConocoPhillips lost about 14... MORE

Will Georgians Watch Russian TV Channels Again?
The new Georgian government’s decision to resume broadcast of Russian television channels may be among the most important recent moves by the country’s leadership (https://www.vestikavkaza.ru/articles/Vernutsya-li-rossiyskie-telekanaly-v-Gruziyu.html). The previous government suspended Russian television broadcasts in Georgia in August 2008. Now some cable companies in Georgia have again... MORE

Grassroots Activism Among Circassians in Russia Remains on the Rise
On December 2, over 100 people held a rally in downtown Moscow in support of Syria’s Circassians. The participants called on the Russian government to intervene and allow the estimated 100,000 ethnic Circassians who live in Syria to repatriate to the Russian North Caucasus. The... MORE