September 8 marked a year since Ramazan Abdulatipov became governor of Dagestan. Abdulatipov was officially appointed governor of the region in September 2013, even though he had been the acting interim head of the republic since January 2013. Despite Moscow’s approval of Abdulatipov and the... MORE

The tragic battles around Donetsk and Luhansk (collectively known as the Donbas region) have taken a pause, and as civilians try to rebuild a semblance of normal life, leaders are figuring out how to now move forward. In his first 100 days, Ukrainian President Petro... MORE

The armed resistance in the North Caucasus is transforming and adapting to the new conditions under the Caucasus Emirate’s new emir. September 7 marked exactly one year since the death of the insurgency’s former leader, Doku Umarov (Kavkavsky Uzel, March 18). Umarov was poisoned by... MORE

On September 10, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed into law a bill on sanctions against Russia (president.gov.ua, September 10). The law was published in official newspapers on September 11, which gave Poroshenko legal grounds to, as soon as September 12, slap sanctions on Russia for... MORE

While on a several-day visit to the Russian Far East (see Jamestown Blog on Russia and Eurasia, September 9), Russian President Vladimir Putin spent less than six hours in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on September 3. He took this trip amidst the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and... MORE

On the eve of a new round of anti-Russian sanctions unveiled by the European Union on September 9, Gazprom’s CEO, Alexei Miller, kicked off a two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan. The head of the Russian natural gas giant and Vladimir Putin’s close advisor had previously visited... MORE

Russian observers reacted quite strongly to an Internet video released by the Islamic State, the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that is operating in Iraq and Syria as well as Lebanese border areas, in which militants are threatening... MORE

On September 5, Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and leaders of the Moscow-backed separatist “governments” signed an armistice agreement in Minsk. The armistice protocol’s Point 4 envisages a “permanent monitoring [of the situation] along the border between Russia and... MORE

The ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk, on September 5, by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and Moscow-backed rebels operating in Ukraine’s Donbas region (area including Luhansk and Donetsk provinces) seems to be holding. Yet, serious problems of implementation persist among the different parties to the somewhat... MORE

At the end of July, the governor of Adygea, Aslan Tkhakushinov, and the chief of the Kuban Cossack Forces, Nikolai Doluda, unexpectedly announced that the Cossacks would start conducting public safety patrols in the republic. The Kuban Cossack Forces are based in Krasnodar region and... MORE