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

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

A high-profile crime against the official Islamic hierarchy of the republic of Tatarstan took place in this relatively quiet Russian region on July 19, when the chief of the instructional division of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Tatarstan, Valiulla-khazrat Yakupov, was gunned down at... MORE

This month, the government agency that oversees Russia’s arms exports and imports – the Federal Service on Military-Technical Cooperation (Federalnaya Sluzhba Voyenno-Tecknicheskogo Sotrudnichestva or FSVTS) – confirmed that Iran is suing Russia for damages to the tune of some $4 billion in the Court of... MORE

The 62nd meeting of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers in Kaliningrad on July 5 discussed deepening security cooperation on a broad range of issues within the former Soviet space, with special attention to developing integrated air defense architecture – long discussed by the CIS... MORE

On July 21, a massive clash between ethnic Russians and Caucasians took place in the central part of the Russian city of Kislovodsk, in Stavropol region of the Northern Caucasus Federal District. Participants in the incident reportedly used knives and guns, and two people died... MORE

On June 13, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) obligated Russia to pay 60,000 euros ($73,680) to relatives of Ramzan Umarov, who was kidnapped by police on April 2007 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The Dagestan Public Prosecutor’s office had opened a... MORE

Russia’s Armed Forces, facing continued and long term convulsions due to inadequately planned and poorly executed defense reform, has further complicated the process by developing and introducing the Aerospace Defense Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskaya Oborona – VKO), which faces multiple technical and organizational challenges. On August... MORE

From July 7 to July 12, Russia and Kazakhstan held their latest joint military exercise, “Aldaspan-2012.” Although Kazakhstan’s security priorities lie in countering terrorists, insurgents, and other small groups of armed militants, Russia’s concern about fighting large-scale mass uprisings, as in Chechnya, or fighting major... MORE

Recent events in Ingushetia, the smallest republic of the North Caucasus, have forced observers not to discount the Ingush armed resistance’s capabilities. In 2011, there were 108 casualties in the ongoing conflict in Ingushetia, including 70 dead and 38 injured. That was three times fewer... MORE