On July 15 Russian investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin stated that the militant group under the command of Islam Uspakhadzhiev (aka the Shalazhi Jamaat, after the village of Shalazhi in Chechnya’s Urus Martan district) was behind the murder two years ago of the well-known Chechen... MORE

The Russian government has reiterated its pledges to spend billions of rubles in government funding to speed up the development of the country’s Far East in a bid to create a gateway to the booming Asia-Pacific Region. Russia hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit... MORE

For several generations of Americans, December 7 was a day on which to pause and think about the destiny of the nation. For one generation the remarks of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the aftermath of the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, “Yesterday, Sunday, December 7,... MORE

Insurgency-related violence was reported in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia this past week. Unidentified attackers shot and killed an inspector with the West Caspian water resources protection service in Dagestan yesterday (July 14). In the incident, which took place in the village of Nechaevka in the republic’s... MORE

On July 7 powerful explosions in Abadan shook Turkmenistan’s political landscape. Following clear attempts to cover up the incident, a few days later the Turkmen regime had to admit that the incident had caused “some casualties.” Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov demoted several government ministers, threatening... MORE

On July 14, Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller and RWE president Juergen Grossmann signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would, if implemented, open a new stage of Gazprom’s expansion into Germany and Europe (Interfax, DPA, Gazprom and RWE press releases, July 14).The Essen-based RWE (Rheinisch-Westfaelisches... MORE

Georgian media-freedom watchdogs, criticizing the espionage investigation against three local photographers (“Three Photographers Charged With Espionage In Georgia,” EDM, July 14), have crossed the line beyond their own mandate. This group now seeks publication of the classified evidence and an “independent review” of the case... MORE

Georgia’s official presidential photographer, another photographer who is an Internal Affairs Ministry contract employee, and the Tbilisi representative of the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), are in pre-trial detention since July 7 on charges of espionage. On July 9 the Internal Affairs Ministry briefed the media... MORE

The Russian government is still looking for the ways to solve the armed resistance problem in the North Caucasus. The government, however, makes no attempt to understand the core issues of the region, seeking instead a quick fix using administrative methods and force. This time,... MORE

Russia has been hit by a number of manmade disasters. The worst is the sinking on July 10, of an old Bulgaria riverboat on the Volga River in Tatarstan. The Bulgaria was built in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and was rundown by age and neglect with... MORE