The ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has finally reacted to the ongoing scandal related to Chechen refugees stuck in Belarus since the summer (see EDM, September 29). Using his favorite means of public communication, Instagram, Kadyrov dismissed claims that residents of Chechnya have to leave... MORE

Against the backdrop of Western sanctions against Russia, European countries are increasingly trying to defend their cooperation with Moscow by saying it is vital for their efforts to combat international terrorism. Chechens, who are scattered across Europe, often become targets of such cooperation. The Chechen... MORE

This week (September 28), a Dutch-led group of investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine published the preliminary results of their more-than-two-year investigation into the crash of flight MH17. The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down, on July 17, 2014, over territory... MORE

Reportedly, the Kremlin is mulling an idea to relocate 500,000–1,000,000 people from the southern portions of the Russian Federation to the Far East and Siberia. This prospect has sparked fears among some non-Russians. Specifically, certain regional minorities, including Crimean Tatars from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula,... MORE

In recent years, there has been no shortage of bad blood between Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the Russian Kremlin. For example, in February 2004, Lukashenka referred to the stoppage of Russian natural gas flows into Belarus, in retaliation for Belarus’s insistence on lower prices,... MORE

Rovnag Abdullayev, the head of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company (SOCAR), told reporters on September 5 that his company is waiting for an explanation from the Greek government for its violation of the originally agreed-upon privatization terms for Greece’s Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) (Azernews.az, September... MORE

Political commentators continue to discuss the outcomes of Belarus’s September 11 parliamentary elections (see EDM, September 12). According to the official results, the lowest voter turnout was in the city of Minsk, 61 percent; and the highest in Mogilev Oblast, 81 percent (Belarus Segodnya, September... MORE

Moscow is again stirring the pot in northeastern Estonia, trying to pit the ethnic-Russian community there against Tallinn. And it is doing so in the classic tradition of Vladimir Putin’s “hybrid” war: specifically, Russia is using a report prepared by the Estonian Security Police that... MORE

Antonov, Ukraine’s only designer and manufacturer of aircraft, has severed all ties with Russia, which had been its main market and partner for decades (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 10). This was unavoidable, given the de facto war waged by Moscow, which prompted Kyiv to stop Ukrainian... MORE

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been carrying on a rapprochement with the Vatican and has even been pushing for Pope Francis to visit Minsk (Interfax, May 23, August 19). Such efforts, along with discussions in the Belarusian media about the possibility of having the Belarusian... MORE