On August 18, the Ekho Kavkaza news service published an interview with two Ossetian militants who are fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine. The militants preferred to be identified by their nicknames—Mamai and Volk (Wolf). They were interviewed at a café on the mountain... MORE

After recent successes by Russia-backed rebel forces in southeastern Ukraine, increased reports of Russian regular troops involved in the conflict, and belligerent statements by the Russian leadership, speculation mounts in Moscow as to the nature of the Kremlin’s “war aims.” Some clues as to Moscow’s... MORE

One hundred years ago, World War I erupted on the European continent, ultimately leading to the fracturing and collapse of the multi-national Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian Empires. However, out of the rubble of the old Romanov state, the Bolsheviks managed to cobble together a... MORE

The secessionist “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) leadership is experiencing even greater turmoil, compared with that of the adjacent “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) in Ukraine’s east. On August 14 the “head (glava) of the republic,” Valery Bolotov, returned to Luhansk after a Moscow visit and announced... MORE

On August 14–15, the “Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) government” and its military command underwent another recasting—the second within one week, while Ukrainian forces tighten the ring around the city of Donetsk. Colonel Igor Strelkov/Girkin, a hero to Russia’s nationalist public, has now been stripped of... MORE

At the end of July, Ukrainian border guards reported three instances of reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Transnistria violating Ukrainian air space (korrespondent.net, August, 1). The drones were seen over the administrative border area between Ukraine’s regions of Odessa and Vinnitsya, as well as... MORE

President Vladimir Putin gathered Duma deputies, national Security Council permanent members, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev—almost the entire Russian ruling elite—in Yalta, Crimea, to give a speech and a Q & A session on external and internal policies. The fighting in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas... MORE

Hasan Khalkechev, a Karachay activist and member of the Council of Turkic peoples, criticized the authorities of Karachaevo-Cherkessia for taking over Karachay civil organizations and stalling political and economic progress in the republic. Like neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria, the authorities in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, instead of fighting the opposition,... MORE

On July 31, the international Contact Group, which aims to resolve the crisis in Ukraine (see EDM, July 18), met in Zaslavl, Belarus. It was attended by former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, some representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s... MORE

Russian State Duma deputy in the Committee on Defense Viktor Vodolatsky, who is also the supreme ataman (head) of the Union of Cossack Forces in Russia and Abroad, openly admitted that Russian Cossacks are actively engaged in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the... MORE