The Russian government is considering building a new water link connecting the Caspian Sea to the ocean via the Azov and Black seas. The new route is supposed to be the shortest and the cheapest way to carry Chinese goods via Central Asia to Europe.... MORE

The ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is embroiled in a dispute with the Russian Ministry of Interior. On April 19, law enforcement agents conducting a special operation in Grozny shot and killed a suspect after he reportedly tried to ram a police car and opened... MORE

Observers who have followed the evolution of Russia’s campaign against the Islamic armed resistance in the North Caucasus over the past 16 years probably noticed that Moscow has no strategy in the region, but only a set of chaotic reactions. Apart from special operations, the... MORE

Against the backdrop of the simmering conflict in Kabardino-Balkaria, President Vladimir Putin replaced the interior minister of the republic, Sergei Vasiliev, with a police major-general, Igor Romashkin. Vasiliev had been in office since 2010. The new Kabardino-Balkarian interior minister served as deputy director of the... MORE

The process of electing the Terek Cossack ataman (chieftain) has been quite public and scandalous this year. Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus, Sergei Melikov, outlined the views of the government on the future of the Cossacks. He said the entire structure of the currently... MORE

Russian experts have written a series of articles on the future of the North Caucasus in a new age of uncertainty in the Russian Federation. They have attempted to determine under what conditions the current political regime in the region could spiral into chaos. Expectations... MORE

Emotions ran high in the Chechen community once again with the news that two school children from Pankisi, Georgia, went to Syria to fight, presumably alongside the Islamic State organization (see EDM, April 16). Earlier in April, 16-year-old Muslim Kushtanashvili and 18-year-old Ramzan Bagakashvili went... MORE

Russia watchers can hardly fail to notice that Moscow often reacts to events in the North Caucasus after a significant time lag. Several amirs of the Caucasus Emirate pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State back in November–December 2014. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), however,... MORE

Six weeks after the assassination of prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin in Moscow, authorities have failed to present a coherent explanation for the crime. As one observer has pointed out: “It looks like the Kremlin has quickly cooled to the investigation.... MORE

Russian defense and interior ministry troops have each staged large-scale military exercises, one after another. Military drills take place across Russia practically year-round, but what was interesting about a recent series of exercises is that they were conducted in the mountainous regions of the North... MORE