Despite the mounting ferocity of Sino-Japanese rhetoric, China’s partner Russia is moving forward on normalizing its ties with Japan. Indeed, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Sochi on February 8, and Putin has accepted an invitation to visit Tokyo... MORE

The long telephone conversation between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the earliest hours of last Saturday was remarkable in its surrealistic detachment from the real events in Ukraine, which were the main topic of the exchange. Obama sought to... MORE

Russia’s economic leverage on Moldova has tended to diminish in recent years, but it remains strong on several key dimensions, and can be used with short-term devastating consequences, if the Kremlin decides to use this leverage punitively. The European Union and the Moldovan government worry... MORE

Since the start of the year, the security services have been waging a powerful counter-insurgency campaign in Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan. There are reports about the killing of a militant or a group of militants from these republics practically every week (https://u-f.ru/News/u316/2014/01/31/669068).Despite this pressure, the rebel... MORE

The European Union and Moldova have set a fairly tight calendar for wrapping up their Association Agreement: signing it by August and ratifying it in the Moldovan parliament until November, when this parliament’s term expires. Moldova’s pro-Europe coalition government holds a narrow majority of 54... MORE

The European Union has accelerated the signing and ratification of the EU-Moldova association agreements, which were initialed at the Vilnius summit in November (see EDM, February 19). The EU and the Moldovan government want to reduce the risk of disruption by Russia and its sympathizers... MORE

Magomedali Magomedov, who was removed as Dagestan’s president in 2013, was the first leader of the republic who proposed starting negotiations with the Salafis. The dialogue process was aimed at Salafis who are not members of the armed resistance but sympathize with the insurgency and... MORE

Ekho Moskvy is Russia’s most popular political talk radio station and the most popular radio station in the city of Moscow, with an estimated daily national audience of some 7 million. The radio has been on the air since August 1990 and has always managed... MORE

On February 14, police in Tatarstan launched a criminal investigation into a video recording by the republic’s self-proclaimed insurgent leader, Emir Abdullah, who claimed responsibility for an attempted terrorist attack in the city of Nizhnekamsk last November (https://ntrtv.ru/index.php?newsid=19073).A masked man claiming to be Emir Abdullah... MORE

Russia’s successes in derailing the European Union’s association agreements with Armenia and with Ukraine have raised concerns about a possible repeat success for Russia in Moldova. Toward that goal, the Kremlin seems set to exploit Moldova’s parliamentary election campaign, which started in the second week... MORE