Russia and Belarus have some of the closest relations in the post-Soviet space. Both are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). And together, the two countries make up the Union State.... MORE

In 2015, Russia changed its assessment of threats, shifting its focus from the Caucasus Emirate to members of the so-called Islamic State (IS). The Russian government’s concern is not so much about the numbers of people who went to Syria and may return, but rather... MORE

Events in the North Caucasus in 2015 showed that the insurgency in the region continued to decline—a trend first noted in 2011. No official figures on insurgent violence are yet available, but they are likely to be about 50 percent lower than in 2014. For... MORE

Under existing legislation, Russia’s National Security Strategy (NSS) must be updated every six years. The previous version was approved in May 2009 by then-president Dmitry Medvedev, so a new NSS was due in 2015. The NSS is composed under the auspices of the Security Council... MORE

Shortly before its residents rang in the New Year, the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea again found itself entirely without Ukrainian electricity. As in November, this was caused by unidentified saboteurs who blew up a power transmission line tower in Ukraine’s Kherson province, which borders Crimea.... MORE

An unexpected result of Russia’s aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East has been Tatarstan’s opposition to the decision to cut ties with Turkey. After a Turkish F-16 downed a Russian warplane that allegedly crossed from Syria into Turkey’s airspace last November, President Vladimir Putin... MORE

At the end of 2015, an unnamed Kremlin official announced that Moscow was now sharing intelligence about the Islamic State with the Afghan Taliban, even though the Taliban remains on the Russian list of terrorist organizations. Predictably the Taliban denied the assertion (Russianews.net, December 26,... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow, which had been scheduled for November 25–26 and then postponed, eventually occurred on December 15. By most accounts, the contentious issues facing Lukashenka and his counterpart, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, were not resolved: the two sides neither agreed... MORE

In slightly over a generation, Kazakhstan has gone from being a republic in which ethnic Russians formed a plurality, to one in which ethnic Kazakhs form a two-thirds majority. But to keep that country within Russia’s orbit, Moscow still counts on the fact that most... MORE

On December 31, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed into law the new National Security Strategy, which replaces its 2009 version. The 2015 Strategy soon prompted a cacophony of critical opinions from commentators who have highlighted the extent to which it designates the United States and... MORE