Against the backdrop of persistent tension in Dagestan, rumors are spreading in the republic that Ramazan Abdulatipov will be replaced sometime in May. Zakir Magomedov, a commentator with the Dagestani newspaper Novoe Delo, argued Dagestan’s present leadership is solving Dagestan’s problems but that replacing Abdulatipov... MORE

Tanks and missiles rolled as usual through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, marking Victory Day against Nazi Germany. In Russia, this commemoration has changed over the last decade from a moment of reflection on the great sacrifice that secured the destruction of Hitlerism to... MORE

On April 29, a meeting of the national leaders of the planned Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), Vladimir Putin of Russia, Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, and Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, took place in Minsk. From the Belarusian standpoint, it proved to be a disappointment. Specifically, the... MORE

On April 28, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid a working visit to Russia’s capital, where he delivered a lecture at the Moscow State University, twenty years after his first similar speech there in 1994. Rather expectedly, the president’s speech was dedicated to the issue of... MORE

On September 24, 2006, almost immediately after Doku Umarov was appointed president of Ichkeria, he started reviewing the structure of the armed jihadi insurgency in Russia. Umarov merged his few jihadi subordinates in the Volga and the Ural regions with the North Caucasian militancy, establishing... MORE

For all their lack of capacity (let alone legitimacy) to organize any kind of voting, pro-Russia forces in Ukraine’s Donbas are proceeding with secession referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces on May 11 as scheduled.Russian President Vladimir Putin had, on May 7, offered to... MORE

The Russian media, citing Agence France-Presse (AFP), recently reported that Yemeni authorities killed a militant named Abu Islam al-Shizani in the south of the country. His name was probably a distortion of Shishani, which usually means Chechen in Arabic. The slain militant had allegedly earlier... MORE

Vladimir Putin has suggested that a referendum by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, hitherto scheduled for May 11, should be postponed (Kyiv Post, May 7). This suggestion is already winning the Russian president praise in Moscow and the West; but it is, in fact, the... MORE

As anticipated (see EDM, May 1), pro-Russia groups have failed to organize the secession referendums, planned for May 11 in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (Donbas). Those marginal groups lack a social, electoral, or organizational base for holding anything resembling referendums. Their paramilitary units have... MORE

A glimmer of hope of a de-escalation of the Ukrainian crisis appeared on May 7, when President Vladimir Putin announced he will “ask the representatives of Southeast Ukraine [who] support federalization to delay the referendum planned for May 11, to create conditions for a dialogue.”... MORE