Every six months, the Russian government conscripts a new cohort of soldiers for its armed services. For the last five years, since the military draft was renewed across the North Caucasus, the enlistment quotas for republics there have been raised and lowered erratically. This has... MORE

Moscow is relocating the home base of its Caspian Flotilla from Astrakhan to a new port facility in Kaspiysk, Dagestan (see EDM, June 4), an action scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. This move is taking on a more menacing aspect... MORE

The Muslim Spiritual Center of Ingushetia (Dukhovniy Tsentr Musulman Respubliki Ingushetii, or the Muftiate) excommunicated the head of the Republic of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, on May 27, during a meeting between the clergy and elders from all over the republic. In other words, the spiritual... MORE

Despite wide international condemnation, on May 16 the Russian Federation completed the first phase of construction of a ten-mile bridge across the Kerch Strait, which links Russia proper with the occupied Crimean peninsula (TASS, May 16). The Kerch Bridge will have serious economic, social, demographic... MORE

This year as every year for more than a century, the nearly 500,000 Circassians in their North Caucasus homeland and the more than five million Circassians in the diaspora paused, on May 21, to remember the losses they suffered during their 101-year-long resistance to Russian... MORE

The so-called “Velvet Revolution” in Armenia (see EDM, April 23, May 3) is highly unlikely to shift the country’s orientation away from Moscow in the near term, particularly given the country’s geopolitical position. And yet, the recent Armenian events may have an even greater impact... MORE

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wants Moscow to allow regional leaders to organize non-Russian military formations on the model of one of the most legendary units of the Tsarist army in World War I, the so-called “Savage Division” (Dikaya Diviziya), which consisted of regiments largely but... MORE

When, in October 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Vladimir Vasilyev to take over from Ramazan Abdulatipov as head of the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, there were widespread hopes and fears that Vasilyev would transform the local political elite by a wholesale replacement of... MORE

The Muslim population of the Russian capital has grown dramatically in recent years, with the arrival in the 1990s of North Caucasians fleeing from violence in their home areas and of Central Asians and Azerbaijanis in the 2000s seeking work. Some estimate the total number... MORE

Vladimir Vasilyev, the ethnic Russian Vladimir Putin installed as head of Dagestan, has attracted widespread attention and approval from Moscow for using officials who—like himself—come from outside the republic, to fight the clans and corruption that have long been endemic there. But his continuing pursuit... MORE