On March 9, unidentified assailants attacked a group of journalists and rights activists in Ingushetia. An estimated 15–20 armed men stopped the minivan with 8 rights activists and journalists in the border area between Ingushetia and Chechnya. The armed men forced the passengers of the... MORE

Russia, a common enemy since recently, has prompted Turkey and Ukraine, the big neighbors across the Black Sea, to step up political, economic and military ties. Bilateral contacts have been particularly intensive this year. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu flew to Kyiv in February, followed... MORE

On the second anniversary of the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the BBC gave its viewers a chance to “look inside the war room” with a program featuring a committee of former senior British military and diplomatic figures. In a quasi-documentary titled World War... MORE

As anticipated (see EDM, February 26), the “Normandy” meeting on March 3–4, in Paris, cornered Ukraine to extract its acceptance of “elections” in the Russian-occupied territory. German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier did almost all the hectoring; his French counterpart, Jean-Marie Ayrault, provided the... MORE

Many analysts say the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s were caused by the republic’s oil. These analysts, however, have tended to overlook the fact that Chechnya no longer had prospects as an oil extracting region by the time the wars started. Chechnya’s oil... MORE

The Russian Ministry of Finance is struggling to balance the budget, gutted by the low prices of oil and other Russian staple export commodities. The problem is made worse by Western financial sanctions over Crimea and Ukraine, which have severely limited Moscow’s ability to borrow... MORE

The government of Stavropol region is set to expand the powers of Cossack patrols in the region. According to new legislation proposed by the regional council, citizens who disobey Cossack patrols now will be subject to fines. Meanwhile, Cossack leaders say that citizens already do... MORE

Experts have long known that the Balkans are a political battleground between Russia and the West. And this chronic non-military conflict has only intensified with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and intervention in Syria. Clearly, Moscow regards both democracy and European integration—the two key issues in... MORE

Russia’s top brass has called on leading military theorists and specialists as well as the defense industry and the government to jointly develop a “soft power” strategy to counter the potential threat from “color revolutions.” The annual general meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Russian Gazprom, Greek DEPA/DESFA, and Italian Edison propose a modified version of Gazprom’s South Stream project, using the Interconnector Turkey–Greece–Italy (ITGI project) for a pipeline corridor to deliver Russian gas to... MORE