The idea of redrawing the borders between the republics of the North Caucasus remains a topic of discussion in the region. According to the Karachay expert Rashid Khatuev, the idea of unifying ethnically related groups is not fading within the Karachay-Balkarian national movement. Khatuev asserted... MORE

Since it participates in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, Russia has a vital interest in developments there. Therefore, Russia’s governmental and expert community reactions to the North Korean nuclear test on February 12 possess importance both for the six-party process and for... MORE

On February 4, a Georgian delegation led by Levan Davitashvili, the head of the National Wine Agency at the Ministry of Agriculture, held another round of trade negotiations with Gennady Onishchenko, the head of the Russian state consumer agency Rospotrebnadzor. After the negotiations, the officials... MORE

Russia’s political-military leadership continues to display interest in the future modernization of the conventional Armed Forces rooted in the adoption network-centric capabilities. The set of interlinked challenges this will present, in terms of technology, force structure, military manpower and combat training are far more revolutionary... MORE

Ukraine has declared the Transnistria conflict a top priority issue of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Ukrainian chairmanship in 2013 (OSCE press release, February 19). Nominally, the OSCE has been in charge of handling this conflict since 1993. Ukrainian diplomacy harbors... MORE

On February 18, the popular Russian website RBC daily announced that the Kremlin is preparing the ground for removing the heads of several republics in the North Caucasus. The website asserted that after the president of Dagestan resigned from his position at the end of... MORE

Last week marked the anniversary of the shocking performance staged by the Pussy Riot punk rock group in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. And this year saw a spectacular increase in the density of “patriotic” political noise silencing common sense in debates over... MORE

At the start of 2013, Russian media increased their coverage of a possible demographic shift in Stavropol region in favor of North Caucasians. The Stavropol region is the largest territory in the North Caucasian Federal District, with a population of 2.8 million, which is just... MORE

Reports of killings arrive from Ingushetia practically every week. During a Federal Security Service (FSB) operation on February 12, the officers killed a local resident. Security officials identified the slain man as Magomed Gaitukiev, a 40-year-old who had been tried in court for aiding the... MORE

Last month, the Croatian government signed up to Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project; it agreed to re-start importing certain gas volumes from Gazprom through existing pipelines from 2013 onward; it welcomed Gazprom’s offers to build jointly-owned power plants in Croatia; heard an unexpected proposal for... MORE