Ethnic-Russian flight from the Far East is again increasing, after appearing to stabilize a few years ago. This development not only changes the balance of ethnic groups living there—few non-Russians are leaving, and many have higher fertility rates than the Russians—but also shifts the region’s... MORE

Since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s air operations in Syria, Russian experts and commentators have attempted to interpret this policy shift. Putin and other members of the political-military leadership claim the intervention is limited to sending arms to Damascus and conducting air operations... MORE

On October 27 in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation presented a concept document to serve as a basis for the “law on local elections in the temporarily occupied areas” of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (see accompanying article). President Petro Poroshenko has personally... MORE

Recasting Russia’s armed proxies as democratic mandate-holders—and tutoring them to look like that on an election’s schedule—is an innovation of the Minsk armistice and ensuing negotiations on the status of the occupied territories in Ukraine’s east. Russia had never seriously attempted to sell this approach... MORE

Amid the continuing rift between Russia and the West, Russian authorities have cracked down on the remaining non-profit organizations with foreign funding operating in the North Caucasus. Russia’s Justice Ministry identified non-profit organizations from Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya as “foreign agents,” which will automatically lead... MORE

The long-stagnant process of trying to conclude Syria’s devastating civil war was reinvigorated last week (October 30), when as many as 19 delegations gathered in Vienna for an eight-hour-long round of talks. Expectations were low, but the participating diplomats managed to play down their deep... MORE

Amir Abu Khamza (Ahmad Umarov), brother of the slain leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Doku Umarov, has made an unexpected statement. Over the past several years, Abu Khamza has been the amir (head) of the Majlis Shura (an advisory body) of the Nokhchiycho Velayat (the... MORE

Despite all of the other major foreign policy issues on its agenda, Russia has not forgotten Cuba. Indeed, it appears that Moscow’s strategic interest in this Caribbean island country has grown steadily, despite reported stagnation in their bilateral economic ties (House.gov, October 22). Recently, Russian... MORE

Russia, on September 30, launched airstrikes in support of the Syrian government in order to stop the advance of the Turkish and Saudi-backed Islamist Sunni rebel group Jaysh al-Fatah (“Army of Conquest”) into the country’s coastal Alawite Shi’a heartlands (NowLebanon, August 27). Meanwhile, the United... MORE

Ukraine held local elections, on October 25, throughout the country, including most of the government-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, but not in the Russian-controlled territory of those provinces. There, the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) prevented the holding of local... MORE