Tajikistan’s perceived strategic significance is rapidly growing, in anticipation of the US/NATO quasi-withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014. Tajikistan shares a 1,400 kilometer border with Afghanistan. That border and Tajikistan itself are an anti-narcotics defensive frontline opposite Afghanistan, the source of an estimated 90 percent of... MORE

In June 2012, Ingushetia was the third deadliest republic in the North Caucasus, behind only Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. Six people died in attacks in the republic and 17 were injured, while 11 were killed and 12 wounded in Kabardino-Balkaria, and 28 were killed and ten... MORE

July has brought a drought to the Russian political climate; even the rise in communal tariffs has barely registered as the urban dwellers migrate en masse to their dachas. The lull gives both the stakeholders in Putin’s regime and the risk-takers in the opposition camp... MORE

Following the unprecedented mass killings at the Arkan Kergen border post in eastern Kazakhstan, the main suspect, Vladislav Chelakh, was sent to Almaty on June 28 to undergo psychiatric checks. Chelakh is accused of murdering 14 border guard colleagues on May 30, 2012. Yet, the... MORE

Lithuania is forging ahead on natural gas sector reform and liquefied natural gas (LNG) access, outpacing other states in the region. In 2011, Lithuania became the first EU member country to adopt the Third Package of EU energy market legislation, choosing its most far-reaching version.... MORE

The Russian military does not want to deal with military conscripts from the North Caucasus region and has placed them outside the constitution of the Russian Federation. By applying these exclusionary practices to the North Caucasians, the Russian government is taking yet another step toward... MORE

The end of June marks two months of active confrontation between the opposition and authorities. Moscow seems to have come out of the political coma it was in for the better part of the last decade and resumed the dynamic political life of the 1990s. Just... MORE

Recently Tajikistan’s government passed several amendments aimed at curbing radical Islam and the threat of terrorism. Among them are amendments to the law “On Combating Terrorism,” which were approved by the parliament. These amendments expand the already considerable powers of the State Committee for National... MORE

The quick succession of alarming incidents at the Arkan Kergen and Tersayryk border posts (see EDM, June 27) revealed deep-running security problems and raised public concerns about the state of Kazakhstan’s border protection. Border authorities and the National Security Committee gave rather confused and often... MORE

In March, the Russian military command unexpectedly began redeploying troops from Chechnya to Dagestan. Russian military forces left Chechnya in the largest numbers ever since the start of the second military campaign in the republic in 1999, with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 personnel redeployed.... MORE