The traditional Munich security conference had a particular and very different meaning last weekend for US Vice President Joseph Biden and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who had an hour-long face-to-face meeting in addition to delivering their keynote speeches. Biden had good reason to be... MORE

As was expected, Dagestani President Magomedsalam Magomedov has stepped down. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on January 28 ending Magomedov’s term, saying that the move was made “at his own request” (https://news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d44198cf5a7ef1b14b.pdf). President Magomedov managed to stay in office for exactly three years... MORE

Hours before Kazakhstan’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov started his first official visit to the Russian Federation, one of Russia’s daily newspapers reported that the country’s foreign ministry had addressed a diplomatic note to its Kazakhstani counterpart with regard to the issue of the... MORE

January brought unexpected news from Chechnya. In the course of a six-day military operation against the militants in the republic’s Vedeno district, government forces killed 11 militants and captured one (www.rbc.ru/fnews.open/20130124152140.shtml). The government forces also suffered losses—two servicemen died and seven were wounded in fighting... MORE

Since the rebellion against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began almost two years ago, many in the West and in the Arab World have eagerly awaited evidence of Moscow beginning to finally ditch the brutal and seemingly doomed Syrian regime. In an interview... MORE

On January 9, Russia’s State Duma rejected Circassians’ calls for the Russian government to treat the Syrian Circassians as compatriots. In a response to a Russian parliamentary query, the head of the department of inter-ethnic relations of the Russian Ministry for Regional Development, Alexander Zhuravsky,... MORE

On January 15–16, President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow with Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sekh Hasina. As a result of these discussions, Russia has pledged to lend Bangladesh $1 billion to buy weapons, $500 million to construct the country’s first nuclear plant, as well as... MORE

The Russian government’s requirement that human rights organizations receiving financial assistance from abroad register as foreign agents and the unwillingness of Russian businessmen to cross the Kremlin by making up the shortfalls is hurting human rights groups across the country. But in the North Caucasus,... MORE

A public dispute about the condition of the Russian Armed Forces has spilled over into the question of awarding an honorific title to an elite unit in the Airborne Forces (Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska—VDV). Attributing the honorary “Preobrazhenskiy” title to a present-day military unit for some critics... MORE

On January 24, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland welcomed the Russian government’s decision to allow the publication of a report on the North Caucasus by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).... MORE