On May 25, 2016, one and a half years after the economic crisis hit Russia, President Vladimir Putin called together a session of the Economic Coun­cil Presidium, an advisory body established back in 2012, but last convened two years ago (Kremlin.ru, May 25; Vedomosti, April... MORE

Chechnya’s governor, Ramzan Kadyrov, continues to capture the news headlines in Russia. On May 30, a delegation from the Russian Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation set out to visit all the North Caucasus republics. Among all the region’s governors, only... MORE

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary to President Vladimir Putin, is generally not known for eloquence. But his comment last week (June 7) about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s exercises in the Baltic region stands out both for its convolutedness and uncharacteristic meekness. His point, reproduced... MORE

According to Refat Chubarov, the president of the Crimean Tatar World Congress and the elected chairperson of the Mejlis (the quasi-governing assembly of the Crimean Tatars), the Russian Federation is in the process of creating a Crimean Tatar military corps to neutralize protests and counter... MORE

A well-known and popular Salafist preacher, Khamzat Chumakov, continues to spark controversy in Ingushetia. Chumakov responds to accusations made against him in Chechnya with lengthy rebuttals and comments made during his sermons. Chumakov’s followers regard him as an independent Muslim figure and attend his Friday... MORE

The top leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine (the “Normandy Group”) conferred by telephone on the night of May 23–24, at Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s initiative. Poroshenko sought an endorsement of Kyiv’s proposal for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to... MORE

On May 21, Russian media reported that a group of young people with ties to the so-called Islamic State (IS) had been detained. According to the police, “the group consisted of four residents of Ingushetia and was established to carry out attacks on representatives of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland held talks, in Moscow, with Russian presidential advisor Vladislav Surkov, on May 17–18 (see Part One). According to the United States government’s official account of the meeting, the talks focused on... MORE

Informal discussions are sputtering along between Washington and Moscow over implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This bilateral process originated in May 2015 as an accompaniment to the Barack Obama administration’s decision to seek Russia’s “help” on Syria. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland... MORE

Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian air force helicopter pilot, was captured by Moscow-backed separatist forces during fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, in the summer of 2014, and ended up in a Russian jail. Savchenko was serving in Donbas as a volunteer soldier with... MORE