Nowadays, the leader of each North Caucasian republic is expected to select either the Chechen path of development or the Kabardino-Balkarian path. The Chechen path is crude, concentrating all power and resources into one person’s hands. The Kabardino-Balkarian path is about professing calmness and being... MORE

Moscow should have been in the midst of its annual mid-summer dead season, with millions of Muscovites heading to the sea in Turkey, or Crimea, or to their small dacha plots out of town. The endemic Moscow traffic jams have eased substantially until the end... MORE

On July 17, a frequent writer on Circassian topics, Andrei Yepifantsev, attacked Circassian activists for “nationalism” and pushing for help to the Syrian Circassians caught in the civil war in that Middle Eastern country. “Three primary themes of the Circassian nationalist movement are recognition of... MORE

The announcement by Vladimir Tor, the leader of the unregistered far-right National Democratic Party (NDP), that he will support anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny in the election for Moscow mayor (https://lenta.ru/news/2013/06/20/navalny/) may have gone unnoticed in the West, but it is one of the most interesting... MORE

Nearly 10,000 Chechens have sought political asylum in Germany since the start of 2013, an unprecedented number that is nearly six times as great as the flow a year earlier—and greater than the number of Afghans and Syrians doing so in the course of the... MORE

On July 12, during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Army-General Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s commander-in-chief ordered a “surprise inspection” of combat forces in the country’s Far East. In the early hours of July 13, according to the defense ministry website, a “snap... MORE

Ukraine is preparing to take part in air defense exercises with Russia and Belarus and a multilateral air force exercise in Kazakhstan, all to be held by November 2013 (https://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/200/2013). Minsk and Astana are key Russian allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and... MORE

Russia’s Ministry of Energy and Gazprom want the European Commission to exempt the biggest pipelines in Germany, OPAL and NEL, from the European Union’s energy market legislation. OPAL and NEL are Gazprom’s joint ventures with Wintershall in Germany. The EU’s Third Legislative Package requires vertically... MORE

Experts have warned that the Dagestani authorities are opting for more heavy-handed measures in their efforts to resolve security issues in the republic in contrast to the previous republican leadership. On July 16, a roundtable on the remaking of Dagestani politics after the appointment of... MORE

A hot and lazy summer in Moscow has turned into a feverish political season last week by the torrent of breaking news—all of them created by Alexei Navalny, who has grown to a towering political figure that scares President Vladimir Putin’s subordinates and leaves far... MORE