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

This week, the Moscow political elite was shocked by the resignation of three Duma deputies from the ruling United Russia (UR) party: chairman of the Duma ethics committee Vladimir Pekhtin as well as deputies Anatoly Lomakin and Vasiliy Tolstopyatov. All were previously accused by opposition... MORE

On February 8, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held a government commission meeting in the city of Cherkessk, Karachaevo-Cherkessia on the socio-economic development of the North Caucasus. The commission called for investing additional funds—nearly $3 billion—through 2020 into the region’s agricultural development. Chechen leader Ramzan... MORE

New recruits to the Russian police will soon undergo mandatory polygraph tests in order to gain admission to the force. The requirement, introduced in June 2012 as part of a comprehensive reform of the police, will now be introduced in practice (https://izvestia.ru/news/528950). The Russian Ministry... MORE

While Minsk has been recently trying its best to revive its relationships with the West (see EDM, February 13), reciprocal steps have not yet been undertaken by the Western countries and international structures. On the contrary, on February 8, the EU proposed that Belarus’s human... MORE

Croatia is expected to join the European Union as a full member in July of this year. In the energy sector, however, Croatia’s center-left government is marking the EU accession in its own ways: First, by joining Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project, in breach of... MORE

United States plans to link the countries of Central Asia by new rail lines with Afghanistan. At the same time, Washington opposes neither the construction of a railway corridor from Central Asia through Iran, nor Chinese extensions of its national rail system into the area.... MORE