President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union message (delivered before Congress on January 20) that US economic sanctions have had a devastating impact on the Russian economy (Tvrain.ru, January 21). In reality, only certain parts of the economy of Russia have been... MORE

Chechens who emigrated to Europe are not in an enviable situation today, as any terrorist threat around the world invariably prompts the security services to investigate them closely. France’s security services attempted to connect the January 7 terrorist attack in Paris on the satirical magazine... MORE

In December 2014, Russian legislators quietly passed new legislation that allows Moscow to remove part of the region from under the control of that region’s government in order “to speed up socio-economic development” in the North Caucasus republics. As a Dagestani analyst Rasul Kadiev points... MORE

The most talked about subject in Kabardino-Balkaria so far in 2015 is the prison sentences passed handed down to the militants who participated in the insurrection in the republican capital in 2005. On October 13 of that year, groups of militants under the command of... MORE

It was an uneasy start to 2015 in the North Caucasus. On the very first day of the year, government forces clashed with militants in Mekkensky village, located in the lowlands of northern Chechnya’s Naur district. Two militants were killed in the battle. According to... MORE

Despite a noticeable decline in the intensity of violence in the North Caucasus, Russian experts on the region are convinced the situation is set to become worse rather than improve. The Kavkazsky Uzel website estimated that 290 people died and 144 people were injured in... MORE

Relations between ethnic Azerbaijanis and the Dagestani peoples in the North Caucasus republic’s southern city of Derbent have reached a boiling point. Two new acts of vandalism—one against a grave of a Muslim leader venerated by Azerbaijanis and a second against a monument to Nizami,... MORE

“No money in the federal budget [of the Russian Federation means] no happiness in the republics of the North Caucasus,” Russian economic geographer Natalya Zubarevich told the Kavkazsky Uzel website. According to the expert, from January to October 2014, the North Caucasus republics received the... MORE

In the past year, significant changes took place in the armed Islamic resistance in the North Caucasus. The Chechen factor proved to be a problem that cut across international boundaries to become a worldwide issue. Change in the Leadership of the Armed Resistance The death... MORE

Analysts have believed that the Islamic State (IS) organization would dispatch people to the North Caucasus and include the region in its sphere of influence. The reality appears to be much simpler: the IS came to the North Caucasus through members of the Caucasus Emirate... MORE