On April 15, the Dagestani newspaper Novoe Delo reported that police had cracked down on mosque parishioners in Makhachkala. According to the newspaper’s sources among the congregation of the mosque on Vengerskikh Boitsov Street, the police randomly detained up to 200 people. Dozens of police... MORE

No region of the Russian Federation has a greater number of young men who could qualify to serve in the Russian military than does the North Caucasus, the combined result of rapid demographic growth and the absence of a Russian military draft there for most... MORE

On April 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing a new federal security service, the Russian National Guard, which largely inherits the troops from the Ministry of Interior. The director of the new federal service has the status of a Russian government minister... MORE

On April 11, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted a government official as saying that “according to the preliminary information, three suicide bombers blew themselves up near the Novoselitsky district police station in Stavropol region (RIA Novosti, April 11). The first surprising fact... MORE

The so-called Islamic State (IS) is increasingly infiltrating Russia, threatening its security (Lenta.ru, June 24, 2015). It has been less than one year since the IS claimed to have a “province” in the North Caucasus (Polit.ru, June 24, 2015), and now the organization claims to... MORE

Two terrorist attacks recently took place in Dagestan. On March 29, a police officer was killed in an attack on a Ministry of Interior troop convoy in Novy Khushet, a Makhachkala suburb (see EDM, April 1). The next day, March 30, police attempted to stop... MORE

From the outside, the situation in Ingushetia appears deceptively quiet. But in reality, the republic is not nearly as peaceful as, for example, Adygea, where, despite tensions, no open conflict takes place. Public confrontations are common in Ingushetia, on the other hand. Also, the Islamist... MORE

While Russia’s economic woes are usually blamed on a combination of Western sanctions and falling global oil prices, it is worth remembering that some of the country’s economic wounds are self-inflicted. For example, on March 28, Russian agricultural workers planned to stage a protest (stylized... MORE

On March 23–24, the Public Council of the North Caucasian Federal District held a conference in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. The primary purpose of the conference was to work out ways to prevent the spread of religion-based radicalism in the North Caucasus. Only officially approved religious leaders... MORE

A concert by the Rustavi state academic Georgian folk song and dance ensemble in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, unexpectedly spiraled into a scandal. When news of Rustavi’s arrival in Vladikavkaz first emerged, South Ossetian activists started a campaign against the Georgian dance group’s... MORE