The end of the year is the time to review the year’s events. In the case of the North Caucasus, we can safely conclude that Russian authorities stopped hiding the fact that the situation in the region is alarming (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/195952/) and there are no signs... MORE

The “disbalance of interests” (see EDM, December 15), favoring Russia over the United States in the South Caucasus, used to be offset by superior US resources, attractiveness and credibility. But that offset has diminished as US policy turned toward de-prioritizing this region (compared with the... MORE

The OSCE’s year-end conference spotlighted the ineffectiveness of the “Minsk Group’s” co-chairs – Russia, the United States, and France – to mediate a solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. The OSCE is the only international forum officially authorized to mediate a solution to this conflict. The... MORE

The December 10 demonstration, gathered on Bolotnaya Square in downtown Moscow to protest massive election fraud during the December 4 Duma elections, was massive: the official count by state police was 25,000, while organizers claimed some 150,000. Independent calculations were of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters... MORE

November 2011 witnessed interesting developments in Belarus: the announcement of the formation of a territorial army by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and a new advisory body called the Council for the Development of an Informational Society (CDIS), run by an existing Operative-Analytical Center and headed by... MORE

On December 8, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed the law on parliamentary elections, which parliament passed on November 17. The new law should allow the ruling Party of Regions to win the election scheduled for October 2012, despite its declining popularity. The elections law raises... MORE

A survey in Dagestan has found that 20 percent of the republic’s youth consider themselves moderate Salafis. Only 10 percent of the respondents referred to themselves as Sufis – traditionally the main Muslim branch in Dagestan. The most educated among those who identified themselves as... MORE

The Caspian nations have reiterated earlier promises to seek a consensus-based settlement, but they apparently failed to resolve their differences. As a result, the Caspian summit previously scheduled in Moscow, tentatively in November this year, appeared to remain elusive.During a meeting in Astana on November... MORE

The Saturday rally in Moscow gathered so many thousands and generated such a resonance that all concerned parties – the authorities, the participants and the abstainers – have to quickly figure out what it really means. Nobody had expected the protest against the crudely but... MORE

Prior to the parliamentary elections to the Russian State’s Duma on December 4, few observers expressed their doubt over Putin’s prospects of comfortably ascending to the presidential position in March 2012. This situation drastically changed as the protest action against allegedly rigged parliamentary vote garnered... MORE