At 4 a.m. on March 28, President Vladimir Putin delivered a sealed letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordering him to launch at once unscheduled maneuvers involving not just the Black Sea Fleet but air and airborne forces and the Army. The exercises wound down... MORE

President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law legislation that allows Russian regions to choose their form of election for governor. They can now do it either through popular elections or through votes in their parliaments (www.kremlin.ru/acts/17786). Thus the new law permits regions to reject popular... MORE

On April 3, in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced a colossal series of gas projects. These involve an expansion of existing big projects or a reactivation of earlier, unimplemented proposals. Ukraine’s start of gas imports from Europe, reducing dependence on... MORE

The annual report of the Russian human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, is interesting not so much for its conclusions as for the distrust it evokes among the country’s population. Ordinary Russian citizens have a skeptical attitude toward Lukin’s activities. The law enforcement agencies, in turn,... MORE

The Russian government, the expert community in Moscow and the national economic elite are actively discussing the economic future of the nation and possible drastic financial policy changes as the economy slumps into potentially long-term stagflation, which may fundamentally destabilize the regime. The elite’s discord... MORE

On March 12, on his official visit to Moscow, Abkhazian separatist leader Alexander Ankvab met with Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill I. The sides discussed strengthening bilateral ties between Russia and Abkhazia (www.georgiatoday.ge,... MORE

Dagestani billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is set to leave the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, according to a report published in the newspaper Izvestia on March 29. Kerimov is among the wealthiest Dagestanis close to the Russian government. The parliament’s lower house,... MORE

Moscow’s latest moves against Moldova, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s call for opening a Russian consulate in Transnistria (politicom.moldova.org/news/russia-opening-a-consulate-in-transnistria-does-not-mean-recognizing-the-region-236048-eng.html), have attracted far more attention, but a speech by Mikhail Formuzal, the head of Gagauzia, to a meeting at an Istanbul university last week (regnum.ru/news/polit/1640299.html) may... MORE

On March 17, the Iranian navy launched a new Jamaran-2 destroyer in the Caspian Sea. The Iranian establishment, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Hassan Firuzabadi, attended the ceremony. This destroyer was developed and... MORE

At the end of March, Mukhamed Cherkesov, the leader of the Circassian organization in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, addressed a plea to republican officials to help Circassian refugees from Syria. Cherkesov alleged that Syrian Circassians have been encountering unusually steep bureaucratic hurdles in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and been forced to... MORE