Nikolai Gogol’s Myortvyye Dushi (Dead Souls), published in 1842, drew inspiration from nineteenth century Imperial Russian landowners maintaining dead serfs on the official count in property registers. Today, the Russian defense ministry likewise engages in creative methods of counting the number of servicemen in the... MORE

On December 31, 2010, an Israeli analyst of the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria, Abraham Shmulevich, declared that the republic was entering a state of civil war. This stark warning came after a well-known researcher and popularizer of Circassian traditions and rites, Aslan Tsipinov, was killed on... MORE

On December 24, 2010, the Russian government’s official newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, finished the publication of Russia’s Federal Law of December 13, 2010 No 357-FZ “On the Federal Budget for 2011 and the Planned Period of the Years 2012 and 2013,” which it had begun publishing... MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev started the year that will decide his political fate by reviving his campaign against corruption, and on January 13 he chaired a meeting of the Anti-Corruption Council. Medvedev opened the proceedings with the half-hearted admission that “our successes in this sphere... MORE

The second week of January 2011 saw little let-up in apparent insurgency-related violence in the North Caucasus, with the largest number of reports coming out of Dagestan. On January 13, two men attacked a police unit in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, killing one policeman and wounding... MORE

In 2010, rights activists in the North Caucasus continued to come under strong pressure from the Russian government. Most notoriously, in September 2010, Chechnya’s ruler Ramzan Kadyrov filed a libel case against head of the Memorial human rights center, Oleg Orlov. Following the killing of... MORE

The ruling United Russia faction has revealed in the Duma the amendments it will attach to the new START III arms control treaty. The ratification draft will contain several points that mimic two US Senate non-binding resolutions approved together with the ratified treaty, requiring the... MORE

By the end of 2010, the Russian government’s policy toward the North Caucasus unexpectedly received perhaps the strongest setback right on the Moscow streets. On December 11, 2010 a crowd of Russian nationalists estimated to be 5,000 people staged riots near the Kremlin, shouting such... MORE

If there is one factor to be singled out which influenced Russia in 2010, it is undoubtedly the role of the Internet in social and political life. In Russia, the worldwide web has become a platform for sharp political and social discussions, a single important... MORE

The modernization of the Russian armed forces, as currently planned for the next decade, appears to squeeze resources for re-equipping the Ground Forces.  An article in the defense ministry’s official publication, Krasnaya Zvezda, unsurprisingly confirmed that modernizing the strategic nuclear arsenal will take the lions’... MORE