Violence continued in parts of the North Caucasus - particularly in Dagestan – this past week despite the major blow dealt to the North Caucasus rebels by a counter-insurgency operation in which 17 militants were killed. There were reports that Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel... MORE

Watching the serial outbreaks of unrest in Arab countries, Azerbaijan’s radical opposition parties see a possible model for political action in their own country. On the secular side, these groups are much-diminished descendants of the Musavat and Popular Front parties, which continually lost ground from... MORE

As Kyrgyzstan marks the first anniversary of the April 7, 2010 regime change after a year full of dramatic changes, ambiguity about the country’s recent past prevails. The public and political leadership still grapples with interpreting the meaning of April 7 as well as the... MORE

In the oversimplifying view of some Western commentators, the ongoing unrest in the “Muslim world” could or should not fail to grip Azerbaijan. On April 2 the veteran protest parties, Musavat and Popular Front, attempted to hold an unauthorized rally in Fountain Square, downtown Baku’s... MORE

Following reports that Russian air and ground forces had killed 17 militants in an operation targeting a rebel base near the village of Upper Alkun in Ingushetia, Moscow waited with trepidation for the official identification of the body of Doku Umarov, the leader of the... MORE

Speaking in the Kremlin this week to the top brass of the Russian military, security, law enforcement and other so called “power structures” President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to fully support the modernization and rearming of the “power structures,” promising that the earmarked funding will not... MORE

The Prosecutor-General’s Office on March 21 launched an investigation against Leonid Kuchma, suspecting him of involvement in the murder of the opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze in 2000, Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin announced on March 22. The Prosecutor-General’s Office on March 24 officially charged Kuchma, president... MORE

On March 28, the Russian state statistical service released the preliminary results of the 2010 census. The country’s net population loss comprised 2.2 million people or 1.6 percent of the general population, which declined from 145.1 million in 2002 to 142.9 million in 2010. The... MORE

In a calculated attack on Russian military science, Army-General Nikolai Makarov the Chief of the General Staff, argued that it has impaired progress (EDM, April 5). Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov coined the phrase in his 1929 book, Mozg Armii (The Brain of the Army) which refers... MORE

In an attempt to copy the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the Azerbaijani opposition organized a street demonstration in Baku on April 2. Despite the government prohibition of this event and the offer by the Mayor’s office to hold the rally in another location, the organizers... MORE