Bulgaria’s energy security and independence were the key topics discussed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the Bulgarian government during her short visit to Sofia on February 5. She urged the Bulgarian government to break dependence on Russia by diversifying its energy supplies.... MORE

The first summit for seven months between Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev was held on January 23 in Sochi, and mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (as in all previous eight meetings in the past three years). After his failure... MORE

Front for Change party leader, Arseniy Yatseniuk, said in an interview in Fokus magazine “In effect in the country there is a two party system. The post-Soviet system confronts the pro-European, the past versus the future” (https://focus.ua/politics/213418/). This view was repeatedly stated by opposition leaders... MORE

On February 2, the Dagestani government outlined its latest plans for curbing the insurgency in the republic. The statement by the head of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, on governmental plans to exert control over the republic sounded like a plan to occupy a foreign country. “We... MORE

For more than a decade, Nabucco was the only pipeline project (and lately, the frontrunner project) for transporting Caspian gas to EU territory. Nabucco relied exclusively on Azerbaijani gas for the pipeline’s first stage (the hopes to add gas volumes from northern Iraq proved unrealistic... MORE

The Azerbaijan-Turkey project, Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline (TAGP; Turkish acronym TANAP), announced as recently as December 26, emerges as the optimal solution for transporting Azerbaijani gas to Europe, potentially opening the way for Turkmen gas also. The pipeline is planned to be built from 2012 to... MORE

On February 2, the leader of the North Caucasus rebels Doku Umarov made an astonishing statement in support of the growing movement in Russia against Vladimir Putin. In a dramatic departure from the previously circulated views, the head of the Caucasus Emirate called on the... MORE

In a video posted yesterday (February 2) to the rebel Kavkaz-Center website, Doku Umarov, the “emir” of the Caucasus Emirate, ordered his forces to refrain from attacks on Russian civilians in connection with the fact that, as the website characterized it, “the process of civil... MORE

As a part of its incessant attempts to consolidate its presence in the energy sector of Central Asia, on January 17, the board of executives of the Russian company, Lukoil, endorsed the purchase by its daughter company, Lukoil Overseas, of 6.6 percent of shares in... MORE

Events in Ingushetia signal a possible increase in tensions in this North Caucasus republic after a nearly two year period of decline in militant activities.  The decline in Ingush rebel activities was linked to the arrest of their leader Magas (aka Taziev-Yevloev) in June 2010... MORE