On June 12, some of the most astonishing news in recent years arrived from Chechnya: the previously ubiquitous portraits of Ramzan Kadyrov had reportedly vanished from the streets of Grozny and other Chechen towns and villages. Until a few days ago, enormous images of the... MORE

The following is the conclusion to the two-part historical series in EDM by Ibragim Gukemukh of the end of the road to Krasnaya Polyana and the last stand of Circassian resistance against Tsarist Russia’s conquest of the Northeast Caucasus. To read Part One, see EDM,... MORE

During the ten-day period from May 29 to June 9, five armed assaults on police officers were reported in Kabardino-Balkaria as the militant movement there appears to be experiencing a resurgence.On May 29, there was an armed clash between a road police unit and unidentified... MORE

The Russian Ministry of Education recently awarded, on a “competitive basis,” funding for the education of foreign students to some of the country’s universities. Circassian activists expressed indignation over the fact that no educational institutions in either Kabardino-Balkaria or Adygea received funding for foreign students.... MORE

As the details of the arrest of the mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov, continue to emerge, experts predict a dangerous power vacuum in the republic. Amirov was arrested by Russian special forces at his home in Makhachkala on June 1 in a military-style operation. According... MORE

Dagestan is interesting not only because it is the largest republic of the region, but also because it has by far the strongest Salafist armed resistance in the North Caucasus. That is why every political event in this North Caucasian republic becomes an important topic... MORE

Against the background of the unfolding situation around the Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the killing in Florida of another Chechen connected to the brothers, Ibragim Todashev, the killing of a Chechen in Turkey... MORE

Ethnic Shapsugs who live in the Krasnodar region around Sochi are trying to make use of the upcoming Olympic Games to improve their position in their homeland. Aisa Achmezov, a businessman and a Circassian activist, told the Kavkazskaya Politika website that the Shapsug village of... MORE

On May 29, the respected Russian newspaper Vedomosti published an analytical article on the situation in the North Caucasus. Expressing a view rarely articulated by Russian experts, he described the processes in the region as “the continuation of the disintegration of the USSR” and “anticolonial.”... MORE

After the Crimean (a.k.a. Eastern) war of 1853–1856 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1856 ending that war, the Russian Empire began to turn toward the final conquest of the Caucasian mountaineers.  Russia was finally able to turn an army of 200,000... MORE