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Latest North Caucasus Weekly Articles
Growing Number of Russian Converts to Islam Joining Insurgents at Home and Abroad
With 28-year-old Anatoly Zemlyanka’s notorious killing of 23-year-old member Magomed Khasiev, ethnic-Russian Muslims are again in the spotlight. Khasiev (a. k. a. Yevgeny Yudin), an ethnic-Russian convert to Islam, came from the Ural region in Russia, while Zemlyanka came from the Siberian town of Noyabrsk.... MORE
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Growing Number of Russian Converts to Islam Joining Insurgents at Home and Abroad
With 28-year-old Anatoly Zemlyanka’s notorious killing of 23-year-old member Magomed Khasiev, ethnic-Russian Muslims are again in the spotlight. Khasiev (a. k. a. Yevgeny Yudin), an ethnic-Russian convert to Islam, came from the Ural region in Russia, while Zemlyanka came from the Siberian town of Noyabrsk.... MORE
Moscow’s Insistence on Micro-Managing Dagestan Is Destabilizing the Republic
Dagestani experts are sounding the alarm about a rise in ethnic tensions in the republic. Some analysts see Dagestan’s current governor, Ramazan Abdulatipov, as the culprit in the rising tensions because the republic’s Avar majority is receiving preferential treatment. The irony is that Moscow has... MORE
Russian Sanctions Against Turkey Show That Circassians Are Among Russia’s Priority Targets
Russia-Turkey relations appear to be deteriorating further after last month’s downing of a Russian warplane on the border between Turkey and Syria. At a meeting with Russian defense ministry officials on December 11, President Vladimir Putin warned against “provocations” against the Russian military in Syria... MORE
Estimates of the Number of Dagestanis Fighting in Syria Range from 600 to 5,000
Recent reports suggest that the number of foreign recruits to the Islamic State (IS) has increased two-fold over the past year and a half (Gazeta.ru, December 8). At the same time, based on open sources, a group of researchers have found that the flow of... MORE
Russian Intelligence Experiences Setback in Effort to Penetrate Islamic State Network in Syria
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan has estimated that 2,000–3,000 militants from Russia are fighting in Syria (Mk.ru, November 16), half the number given by Russian President Vladimir Putin (Portal-credo.ru, October 16). Syrian President Bashar al-Assad provides an even higher figure: he estimates that... MORE
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Russian Intelligence Experiences Setback in Effort to Penetrate Islamic State Network in Syria
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan has estimated that 2,000–3,000 militants from Russia are fighting in Syria (Mk.ru, November 16), half the number given by Russian President Vladimir Putin (Portal-credo.ru, October 16). Syrian President Bashar al-Assad provides an even higher figure: he estimates that... MORE
Circassians Express Indignation Over Monument to Tsar Alexander II in Sochi
On November 21, the authorities in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi erected a monument to Russian Tsar Alexander II. The monument was part of a larger project called the Alley of Russian Fame (Alleya Rossiyskoy Slavy). The head of the project, Mikhail Serdyukov,... MORE
Uncontrolled Movements of People in North Caucasus Threaten Russian Security
The Russian authorities have lost control over three key movements of people in the North Caucasus—from rural areas to the cities, from the North Caucasus region to Moscow and other Russian centers, and from the region to Syria and the Middle East more generally. That... MORE
Moscow’s Economic Sanctions Against Turkey Will Have Negative Impact on North Caucasus
Moscow’s reaction to the downing of a Russian military jet over Turkey has been unusually harsh. In his address to the Russian parliament on December 3, President Vladimir Putin continued his diatribe against Turkey’s leadership. “If anybody thinks that after having committed a cowardly military... MORE