Since 2007, two of Moscow’s priority foreign policy initiatives have been its pivot to Asia and efforts to secure recognition of its Arctic claims while opening the Russian High North up to large-scale development. In both cases—in the Arctic or the Russian Far East—Moscow can... MORE

At the beginning of March 2016, a large coalition of organizations opposed to the president of the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia, Raul Khajimba, started gathering signatures calling for a referendum. The proposed question for the referendum is “Do you consider it necessary to hold... MORE

On the night of April 2, the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact around the separatist region of Karabakh erupted in the worst violence for two decades until a tenuous ceasefire ended hostilities three days later. What is notable about the brief violent conflict is that both... MORE

On April 5, President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of a new National Guard, marking a sweeping transformation in Russia’s security structures (see EDM, April 7, 11). Intermittently discussed since the 1990s, the reform of these structures was long overdue and clearly tasked with improving... MORE

On April 2, a conflict erupted between Dagestanis and Kalmyks in Kalmykia’s capital Elista. A Dagestani wrestler, Said Osmanov, who was on a visit to Kalmykia reportedly went inside a Buddhist temple, urinated, and kicked the face of a Buddha statue. Moreover, Osmanov posted the... MORE

In August 2015, the Russian official news agency TASS quoted United States Army Europe’s (USAREUR) commander, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, speaking on, among other topics, the growing robustness of Russian electronic warfare (EW) capabilities (TASS, August 19, 2015). What the US general said undoubtedly provided... MORE

The recent release of the “Panama Papers,” which revealed notorious cases of hidden money flows tied to the global elite, continues to cause a political stir across the world. But in Russia, this scandal was eclipsed by President Vladimir Putin’s sudden reshuffling of the law... MORE

In January 2016, the Russian media reported that Russia’s gas giant, Gazprom, had discontinued all purchases of natural gas from Turkmenistan and was not planning to resume imports any time soon. This information was later confirmed in a company statement released in mid-March, containing some... MORE

In the past week, two notable events sparked heated debate in the Belarusian and Russian press: the dispensation to Belarus of a Russian $2 billion loan and a visit to Minsk by Michael Carpenter, the United States’ Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine... MORE

Two terrorist attacks recently took place in Dagestan. On March 29, a police officer was killed in an attack on a Ministry of Interior troop convoy in Novy Khushet, a Makhachkala suburb (see EDM, April 1). The next day, March 30, police attempted to stop... MORE