The government in Minsk has long claimed that Belarus’s socioeconomic stability is its major achievement. Indeed, from 1996 to 2014, it experienced positive GDP growth every year, and its living standards were on the rise. However, the conflict in Ukraine ultimately converted this idea of... MORE

Dagestan is the largest republic of the North Caucasus and, at the same time, the region’s most unstable because of the frequent attacks by the armed Islamic opposition movement. The majority of armed militants in the republic currently operate under the flag of the radical... MORE

The Second World Congress of Crimean Tatars (Butun Dunya Qirim Kongresi—BDQK) took place in Ankara, Turkey, from July 31 to August 2. Among the 600 participants, 410 were registered delegates representing 184 Crimean Tatar organizations from twelve different countries: Ukraine, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia,... MORE

August was a turbulent month for the armed Islamic resistance movement in the North Caucasus, with the Russian security services carrying out multiple successful operations. According to an independent news source, the Kavkazsky Uzel website, over three dozen people may have been killed or wounded... MORE

Germany is leading Western Europe’s return to business as usual with Russia in the natural gas sector, notwithstanding Russia’s war in Ukraine. On September 4, at the Vladivostok economic forum, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance, two binding agreements were signed that will dramatically... MORE

Reports of the alleged troop buildup in Syria of a “Russian expeditionary force” to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, first appeared last month (August) in Israeli and Ukrainian online publications. The Kremlin denied these accounts, but seemingly halfheartedly (Kommersant, September 8). On September 4, speaking... MORE

Russian parliamentarians have requested that the government increase its control over Central Asian migrants, due to a supposed infiltration of these communities by Islamic State fighters. Militants disguised as labor migrants had allegedly snuck into Russia in order to destabilize the country (Izvestia, July 6,... MORE

Many of Dagestan’s ethnic groups have repeatedly voiced concerns over living together in a republic in which each group feels “cheated” by the others. Few regions of the republic however, have as much of a chance to successfully secede as southern Dagestan, popularly known by... MORE

On August 22, Russian Deputy Defense Minister General Dmitry Bulgakov stated that as of the end of July, Russia had deployed 500 railway troops to restore the portion of the north-south Abkhazian railway that became non-operational since the 1992–1993 war in Abkhazia. General Bulgakov specifically... MORE

Brutal police operations in Kabardino-Balkaria in recent months have prompted some experts to conclude that the republic’s governor is building a “police republic.” Yuri Kokov has ruled Kabardino-Balkaria since December 2013, although he was officially appointed governor in October 2014. A career police official, Kokov... MORE