On July 15 Russian investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin stated that the militant group under the command of Islam Uspakhadzhiev (aka the Shalazhi Jamaat, after the village of Shalazhi in Chechnya’s Urus Martan district) was behind the murder two years ago of the well-known Chechen... MORE

The Russian government has reiterated its pledges to spend billions of rubles in government funding to speed up the development of the country’s Far East in a bid to create a gateway to the booming Asia-Pacific Region. Russia hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit... MORE

For several generations of Americans, December 7 was a day on which to pause and think about the destiny of the nation. For one generation the remarks of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the aftermath of the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, “Yesterday, Sunday, December 7,... MORE

Insurgency-related violence was reported in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia this past week. Unidentified attackers shot and killed an inspector with the West Caspian water resources protection service in Dagestan yesterday (July 14). In the incident, which took place in the village of Nechaevka in the republic’s... MORE

On July 14, Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller and RWE president Juergen Grossmann signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would, if implemented, open a new stage of Gazprom’s expansion into Germany and Europe (Interfax, DPA, Gazprom and RWE press releases, July 14).The Essen-based RWE (Rheinisch-Westfaelisches... MORE

The Russian government is still looking for the ways to solve the armed resistance problem in the North Caucasus. The government, however, makes no attempt to understand the core issues of the region, seeking instead a quick fix using administrative methods and force. This time,... MORE

Russia has been hit by a number of manmade disasters. The worst is the sinking on July 10, of an old Bulgaria riverboat on the Volga River in Tatarstan. The Bulgaria was built in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and was rundown by age and neglect with... MORE

On July 6, the Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot) website reported new cases of arson attacks against relatives of suspected rebels in Chechnya. The website quoted sources in the Shali, Kurchaloi and Gudermes districts (who were not named for security reasons) as saying that that up... MORE

In 1850, Ivan Turgenev popularized the literary concept of the “superfluous man” in his Dnevnik Lishnego Cheloveka (The Diary of a Superfluous Man). The character is unable to reconcile his own talents and abilities to the state-centric approach demanded by his employment. During the reorganization... MORE

On July 6, a massive anti-government protest took place in the town of Baksan, Kabardino-Balkaria. An estimated 600 unarmed young men blocked a vital highway connecting the capital of the republic, Nalchik, with the neighboring Stavropol region. The protesters demanded that the authorities “put an... MORE