The Moscow European Security Conference on May 23–24 offered an opportunity for a wide range of defense officials and experts from member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to exchange views on the future of Euro-Atlantic security with their Russian counterparts. Russia’s leading... MORE

For the past several days, Georgian politicians and experts have extensively discussed the alarming development of the situation around the village of Ditsi (https://en.ria.ru/world/20130527/181373355.html), located at the border between Georgia and South Ossetia. The government in Tbilisi considers this boundary “administrative” and is invariably sensitive... MORE

Insolvent Greece is auctioning off its state assets, both as a matter of necessity and as a condition imposed by international creditors for bailing out the country. The state-controlled natural gas company, DEPA/DESFA, is by far the most valuable asset in the Greek privatization package.Russian... MORE

On May 29, the respected Russian newspaper Vedomosti published an analytical article on the situation in the North Caucasus. Expressing a view rarely articulated by Russian experts, he described the processes in the region as “the continuation of the disintegration of the USSR” and “anticolonial.”... MORE

The Russia–European Union summit opens today (June 3) in Yekaterinburg, according to the twice-yearly schedule and amidst mutual irritation and disappearing expectations. Quarrels about the Syrian calamity are unavoidable. The talks will likely be fruitless, with Moscow expressing disappointment over the EU’s lifting of the... MORE

After the Crimean (a.k.a. Eastern) war of 1853–1856 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1856 ending that war, the Russian Empire began to turn toward the final conquest of the Caucasian mountaineers.  Russia was finally able to turn an army of 200,000... MORE

The May 23 Moscow conference on “Military and Political Aspects of European Security,” hosted by the Russian Ministry of Defense, saw an interesting admixture of old and new thinking on seminal Eurasian security questions. Little progress can be expected in reducing Russia’s and the North... MORE

The armed resistance movement in the North Caucasus has carried out suicide bombings ever since the start of the second military campaign in Chechnya.  On June 4, 2000, a 22-year-old Chechen woman, Khava Baraeva, detonated an explosive-laden truck near a Russian military target, killing three... MORE

The Barack Obama administration has been doing its best to befriend President Vladimir Putin’s regime, but seems to be failing. Despite intensive attempts by Europe, the United States and Israel to prevent Russian shipments of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, President Bashar al-Assad announced... MORE

On May 14, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Russia’s 7th military base in Gudauta, in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia. At the base, Shoigu toured a Russian military sanatorium and parking lot under construction, which is planned to house current and incoming military... MORE