Memorial has blamed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov for the murder of Natalya Estemirova, who worked in the Russian human rights group's office Grozny. Estemirova's body was found with bullet wounds to the head and chest near the village of Gazi-Yurt in Ingushetia yesterday just hours... MORE

Following U.S. President Barack Obama's reaffirmation of political support for Georgia at the Moscow summit (EDM, July 14), and anticipating U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden's visit to Tbilisi, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev inspected the occupied South Ossetia on July 13. Medvedev made clear that the Russian... MORE

Top Russian officials are claiming that the security situation in the North Caucasus is improving. News reports from the region, however, paint a different picture. President Dmitry Medvedev told Ingushetia's acting president, Rashid Gaisanov, during a meeting in Sochi yesterday that "the fight with bandits"... MORE

Moscow and Beijing have hailed what they describe as a bilateral strategic partnership, but Russian and Chinese state-run energy companies struggle to agree to a compromise on energy prices. Both sides insisted that the visit by China's President Hu Juntao to Russia on June 16-18... MORE

U.S. President Barack Obama's firm stand on Georgia during the July 6-7 Moscow summit, to be followed by Vice-President Joseph Biden's visit to Georgia on July 22, marks a crossroads in U.S. policy toward Georgia. With the Obama administration's transition process now practically complete, the... MORE

The incendiary idea of abolishing the republics of North Caucasus resurfaces in the Terek Cossacks' demands as a way of dealing with regional problems, but Moscow's constraints still persist. Terek Cossack army's ataman Mikhail Inkavtsov attacked North Caucasus republics, accusing the ethnic republics of being... MORE

The Russian MoD controlled Zvezda TV reported on July 9 that the Far Eastern Military District (MD) is preparing its largest redeployment of hardware since World War II as part of an "anti-terrorist" exercise with China. On 22 July the Russian armed forces will jointly... MORE

U.S. President Barack Obama's first summit meeting in Moscow with Russian leaders did not warrant headlines in the Ukrainian media. The top story, understandably, continued to be the seemingly unending political crisis in the country, as a consequence of which, American-Russian summitry was buried in... MORE

Today, the northwestern part of the North Caucasus region (comprised of the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya) is increasingly becoming one large battlefield. An affluent resort area during the Soviet period, today the region attracts very few Russian visitors, primarily due to its instability.... MORE

Rebels in Ingushetia and Chechnya continue to target the police and military in the two troubled republics. The chief of the forensics department of Ingushetia's interior ministry, Magomed Gadaborshev, died today of wounds sustained during an attack on July 7. Gadaborshev was shot by unknown... MORE