![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/region-caucasus_01.jpg)
Latest Articles about North Caucasus
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Ramzan.jpg)
Is Russia’s Government Planning to Take on Chechnya’s Strongman?
Russian analysts are beginning to wonder whether Moscow has grown tired of Chechnya’s ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, and wants to replace him. Recent attacks on human rights activists in Chechnya received unusually wide and negative media coverage in Russia, even though years of routine rights violations... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Circassian_flag_-_EDM_June_16__2015.jpg)
Shapsugs Increasingly Important Players in Circassian Struggle With Moscow
Most analysts concerned with the Circassian issue in the North Caucasus have focused on the three republics where subgroups of that nation are the titular nationalities—Adygea, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria—or on the enormous diasporas in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere. But another player has emerged in the... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/kchr-t.jpg)
Ethnic Russian Exodus From Karachaevo-Cherkessia Offers No Solution
Public figures rarely speak out against the existing political order in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, so the open letter from Nikolai Khokhlachyov, an ethnic-Russian activist in the republic, to Sergei Ivanov, the head of President Vladimir Putin’s administration, was surprising. Khokhlachyov called on Ivanov to appoint an ethnic... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Karaulova.jpg)
Moscow College Student Caught Crossing Into Turkey to Join IS
The story of Moscow State University (MGU) student Varvara Karaulova has caused an outcry in Russia. Earlier this month, to the surprise of her parents and friends, the student unexpectedly disappeared and was later found by Turkish border guards at the Syrian border (RIA Novosti,... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Khamzat_Chumakov_-_EDM_June_11__2015.jpg)
Salafist-Sufi Tensions Threaten Greater Instability in North Caucasus
Muslims in the North Caucasus anxiously watched the incident at a mosque in Ingushetia’s Nasyr-Kort (Nazran) municipality on June 5, when several thousand supporters of the republican mufti, Isa Khamkhoev, and the imam of the mosque, Khamzat Chumakov (see EDM, August 1, 2013), clashed with... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Churekov.jpg)
Moscow Views Cossacks as Both Opportunity and Threat
On May 29, the well-known Cossack ataman Yuri Churekov was arrested in Stavropol region. Investigators suspect Churekov of illegal arms operations. Reportedly, on April 28, Churekov and another individual sold two Kalashnikov automatic rifles to undercover government agents in the city of Goryachevodsk, Churekov’s hometown.... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Circassian-Estonian_meeting__June_4_-_EDM_June_8__2015.jpg)
Estonian Parliament Meets With Circassian Activists
On June 4, the press service of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) announced that a group of members of the Estonian legislature met Circassian activists Iyad Youghar (United States), Adel Bashqawi (Jordan) and Dr. Nusret Baş (Turkey). The main issue on the meeting’s agenda was... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/magomedov-muhammad-765x510.jpg)
Dagestan Begins to Reverse Its Relatively Tolerant Policy Toward Salafism
After Nadir Abu Khalid (a.k.a. Nadir Medetov), one of the best known radical Salafist preachers in Dagestan and one of the most popular among young people, fled to Syria, it appears that the Dagestani authorities have begun cracking down on Salafist imams. Khalid’s house arrest... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/kvkazpress.jpg)
Islamic State Causes Turmoil and Divisions Among North Caucasus Militant Leaders
The amir (commander) of the Khasavyurt jamaat, Islam Abu Ibragim (a.k.a. Islam Muradov), recently declared that Muslims in Dagestan should pay a tax to the Islamic State (IS). Ibragim is among those militants who left the Caucasus Emirate and pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/61e1be47-bddc-4d28-aa28-91405028d91c__1_.jpg)
Russian Analyst Calls on Government to Learn From Recent Unrest in Macedonia
Researchers have compared the North Caucasus and the Balkans as regions with similar historical and political trajectories (see for example Janusz Bugajski, Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared, The Jamestown Foundation, 2014). This view has also gained traction among Russian experts. With the... MORE