On the morning of April 17, Dagestani parliamentary deputy Musa Islavov was killed on Babayurt Road in the city of Khasavyurt by unidentified assailants who fired at his car before fleeing the crime scene. The deputy was killed on the spot while his driver, 45-year-old... MORE

On March 31, a Russian Joint Staff official, Lieutenant General Vasiliy Tonkoshkurov, made a surprise statement about the country’s conscription campaign at a press conference on the spring 2014 military draft campaign in Russia. During the event Tonkoshkurov announced that residents of the North Caucasus... MORE

The Russian authorities have admitted that the situation involving the insurgency in the North Caucasus has no clear positive outlook for the government. The Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Interior in the North Caucasus Federal District confirmed this assessment in a report on... MORE

Tensions have recently spiked not in the Republic of Ingushetia itself, but in the border area of neighboring North Ossetia, which is populated by ethnic Ingush. Residents of the village of Maiskoe rose up in protest after the law enforcement agencies of North Ossetia–Alania arrested... MORE

On April 4, Russia’s State Duma passed a law that simplifies the process of acquiring Russian citizenship. The new legislation enables people to obtain a Russian passport if they speak Russian and their immediate ancestors lived on the territory of the Russian Federation, Russian Empire... MORE

Much has been made in Moscow and the West in recent months about falling fertility rates—the number of children per woman over a lifetime—among the Muslim nationalities of the North Caucasus, with some Russian and Western experts suggesting that the Russian Federation no longer faces... MORE

The Russian invasion of Crimea and the tensions with the West that followed it have created a new public climate in Russia with regard to the North Caucasus. “Today, when Russia has found itself practically on the verge of war with its closest neighbor, all... MORE

Russia’s Anschluss of Crimea last month was carried out according to all the standard procedures of the Third Reich. Like Nazi Germany and the Sudetenland in 1938, Moscow captured Crimea and presented the move as a triumph of historical justice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4octWQkIxg).There are also some important... MORE

Following the news of Doku Umarov’s death and the elevation of a new leader of the North Caucasian armed underground, experts have started to debate whether this will bring changes in the tactics of the insurgents.The replacement of Umarov, whose death was announced only in... MORE

On April 3, Kabardino-Balkaria’s parliament voted to reject direct elections for the republic in favor of appointment by the Russian president. Adalbi Shkhagoshev, a member of the republican parliament from United Russia, the country’s ruling party, told the newspaper Kommersant that the decision was taken... MORE