In February, Russian sources confirmed a $200 million loan to Armenia. The loan—extended by Moscow to allow Armenia to buy up-to-date Russian weapons—had been promised in June 2015 (see EDM, June 29, 2015). In a rather unusual manner, and contrary to the agreement’s confidentiality clause,... MORE

Operations by Russian security forces against militants of the armed Islamist underground movement in Dagestan are less frequent now than in previous years, yet they are still a part of life for local residents. Following a special operation near the village of Avadan, in southern... MORE

The government of the Georgian breakaway territory of Abkhazia plans to ramp up its attempts to bring the large Abkhaz diaspora back to the republic. Currently, an estimated 3,500 Abkhaz repatriates are permanently residing in the republic and up to 8,000 have received Abkhazian passports.... MORE

On March 9, unidentified assailants attacked a group of journalists and rights activists in Ingushetia. An estimated 15–20 armed men stopped the minivan with 8 rights activists and journalists in the border area between Ingushetia and Chechnya. The armed men forced the passengers of the... MORE

Georgia’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze recently visited the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where he held talks with NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow. The Georgian minister also took part in a meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission, with the participation... MORE

On March 5, in the fighting for the city of al-Shaddadi in eastern Syria, one of the most influential commanders of the so-called Islamic State (IS), Tarkhan Batirashvili, a.k.a. Umar al-Shishani, was reportedly killed. Batirashvili, was an ethnic Chechen from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge (Rbc.ru, March... MORE

Many analysts say the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s were caused by the republic’s oil. These analysts, however, have tended to overlook the fact that Chechnya no longer had prospects as an oil extracting region by the time the wars started. Chechnya’s oil... MORE

On February 23, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited Tehran, where he met with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani. Notably, the two presidents signed 11 memoranda of understanding (MoU) across several areas of cooperation, including energy, the economy and transport (IRNA, February 23). But the timing... MORE

The government of Stavropol region is set to expand the powers of Cossack patrols in the region. According to new legislation proposed by the regional council, citizens who disobey Cossack patrols now will be subject to fines. Meanwhile, Cossack leaders say that citizens already do... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Russian Gazprom, Greek DEPA/DESFA, and Italian Edison propose a modified version of Gazprom’s South Stream project, using the Interconnector Turkey–Greece–Italy (ITGI project) for a pipeline corridor to deliver Russian gas to... MORE