Latest Articles about Russia
Anti-Corruption Campaign in Kabardino-Balkaria Signals Moscow May Adopt a More Aggressive Approach Toward the North Caucasus
On July 27, the RIA Novosti news agency reported that a Nalchik city court temporarily suspended the head of the Russian Treasury Department’s branch in Kabardino-Balkaria, Leonid Zrumov, from his post. A criminal case against Zrumov had been launched earlier, back on June 28. On... MORE
‘Federalization’ Is Back on Russia’s Agenda for Moldova
Moscow has marked the 20th anniversary of its “peacekeeping” in Moldova by multiplying obstacles to conflict-resolution (see EDM, July 27). State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin, reading out in Tiraspol a message on President Vladimir Putin’s behalf, promulgated a new political... MORE
Russia Multiplies Conditions for Conflict-Resolution in Moldova
Russian diplomacy is piling up new pre-conditions upon old ones for conflict-resolution in Transnistria. For the first time since 2003-2004 (when two parallel “federalization” projects collapsed), Russia is openly proposing again to turn Moldova into a federation or confederation. Moscow has reactivated those proposals on... MORE
The Kremlin, the VKO and the Search for ‘Luke Skywalker’
The Kremlin continues to struggle with balancing the needs of modernizing the conventional Armed Forces, renewing the strategic nuclear deterrent, and also forming and supporting the imprecisely defined high-technology demands of the Aerospace Defense Forces, while depending on a defense industry struggling to escape the... MORE
With Syria Crisis, North Caucasians Rediscover Ethnic Ties
On July 18, Circassians activists from several countries, including Russia’s North Caucasus, called on the Circassian and Caucasian organizations to focus on helping the Syrian Circassians. The Circassians in the North Caucasus celebrate August 1 as Repatriate’s Day, and the celebrations this year are bound... MORE
Moscow’s Military Muscle in Central Asia: Tajikistan Exposes Russian Hard Power
Continued wrangling between Dushanbe and Moscow over the renewal of basing rights for the 201st Military Base headquartered in Tajikistan’s capital has eclipsed Russia’s wider basing strategy in Central Asia and the extent to which Tajikistan’s security depends upon Moscow’s continued military and security presence... MORE
Kizilyurt Remains a Hotbed of the Dagestani Insurgency
Having been tipped off about the whereabouts of several members of the armed resistance in Dagestan, the republican security services identified their location on July 21. Special units of the FSB (Federal Security Service) and the Interior Ministry blocked the suspected rebels in a four-story,... MORE
Twenty Years of Russian “Peacekeeping” in Moldova
Twenty years ago, on July 21, 1992, the Russian 14th Army’s intervention in the Transnistria conflict forced Moldova to accept the deployment of Russian “peacekeeping” units. Six days later (July 28), the first of those units was air-lifted from Russia’s interior to Moldova, on both... MORE
South Stream: A Project with Changeable Geography
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants the South Stream consortium to make a final investment decision by November 2012, and insists that Gazprom start construction work by the same date on the pipeline’s section in the Black Sea (Interfax, July 23; www.kremlin.ru, July 24). With four... MORE
Italy Ambivalent About Gazprom’s South Stream Project
On July 23 in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin obtained a verbal endorsement of Gazprom’s South Stream project from Italy’s new prime minister, Mario Monti, on his first visit to Russia in that capacity. Italy’s state-controlled oil and gas company, ENI, is a shareholder in... MORE