On November 26, a counter-terrorist operation regime was lifted in Untsukul district, located in the mountains of Dagestan. Introduced back in March, the regime was lifted, but the Gimry tunnel remains closed for through traffic. The Gimry tunnel connects the mountainous districts of the republic... MORE

On November 26, the city court in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, sentenced a man accused of fighting in the Syrian civil war to four years in prison. This is the first time in Kabardino-Balkaria that a person was convicted and sentenced for taking part in the Syrian... MORE

After the followers of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed their allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) organization (sedmitza.ru, June 30), some of the rebel forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad became polarized. That polarization also affected the Chechen militant groups fighting in Syria, with... MORE

On November 19, the Center for Combating Extremism in Adygea summoned the editor-in-chief of the Natpress news agency, Aslan Shazzo, for a talk. Shazzo recounted what transpired during his talk with the police officials, providing a rare glimpse into the mechanisms Russian officials use to... MORE

In the first ten months of 2014, the industrial output index in Dagestan grew by 139.8 percent—record industrial growth among Russia’s regions. Moreover, in 2013, the republic’s industrial output index grew by an enviable 137.5 percent. These astonishing figures for the economically depressed republic led... MORE

Rarely a week passes in Dagestan without the authorities launching a new special operation against militants. Some weeks, several special operations take place across the republic. In most instances, these law enforcement actions are based upon information received from Russian moles planted in the ranks... MORE

On November 18, Russian and regional analysts in Karachaevo-Cherkessia discussed the striking difference between two neighboring and quite similar republics, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. While Kabardino-Balkaria has seen the rise of a militant insurgency in recent years, Karachaevo-Cherkessia has managed to remain fairly quiet, even though... MORE

As he has done for years, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was the first to announce the latest government operation against rebel militants in Chechnya. Kadyrov stated on his personal Instagram webpage that government forces had killed a group of four bandits in the republic’s Sunzha... MORE

The tradition of North Caucasus mountaineers serving in the Russian army goes back 150 years. In the 1870s, the Russian Empire tried to tie the mountaineers to the Russian system of governance by forming ethnic-based volunteer battalions. North Caucasus battalions fought in Russian wars for... MORE

As Russia’s economic stagnation reverberates in the North Caucasus, the regional elites have begun to scramble for local resources. An uncharacteristically open discussion erupted in Dagestan’s republican parliament in Makhachkala on October 30, when a well-known politician in the republic, Eduard Khidirov, stated that between... MORE