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

On February 15, a suicide bomber blew his car and himself up near the Jimikent police checkpoint, in Derbent district, in southern Dagestan. Initially, the news reports suggested that the attack killed two police officers and two civilians. Five other people were injured and several... MORE

On February 23, Azerbaijan’s parliament adopted amendments to the state budget to adjust down expected budget revenues based on oil price estimates of as low as $25 per barrel (Azernews.az, February 23). Initially, the State Budget for 2016 projected oil at $50–55/barrel (Trend, September 14,... MORE

Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly voiced discontent with the actions of Chechens who reside in Europe. During the first years of his rule in Chechnya, he managed to convince many of the former leaders of Ichkeria to switch sides and move back to Grozny. This guaranteed... MORE

Chechen militants in Syria have been going through organizational changes since last summer. The position of the Chechen militants in the Middle East was especially damaged by a conflict within the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar group and the difficult situation inside the Junud al-Sham group. Those... MORE