Chechnya’s two-century-old Sufi tradition experienced its first crisis 30 years ago, when the first Salafists appeared in the republic. The Salafists did not simply proclaim the supremacy of their teachings, but aspired to take power in the republic. The Salafist aim of grabbing power sparked... MORE

With 28-year-old Anatoly Zemlyanka’s notorious killing of 23-year-old member Magomed Khasiev, ethnic-Russian Muslims are again in the spotlight. Khasiev (a. k. a. Yevgeny Yudin), an ethnic-Russian convert to Islam, came from the Ural region in Russia, while Zemlyanka came from the Siberian town of Noyabrsk.... MORE

Moscow’s Insistence on Micro-Managing Dagestan Is Destabilizing the Republic Dagestani experts are sounding the alarm about a rise in ethnic tensions in the republic. Some analysts see Dagestan’s current governor, Ramazan Abdulatipov, as the culprit in the rising tensions because the republic’s Avar majority is... MORE

“ ‘All progressive humanity’ is concerned by the periodic reports about the disappearance of this or that type of plant or animal, [but] we are much less concerned about the disappearance of nations and nationalities,” Armenian expert Gevork Pogosyan says. Yet, as the post-Soviet period... MORE

Russia-Turkey relations appear to be deteriorating further after last month’s downing of a Russian warplane on the border between Turkey and Syria. At a meeting with Russian defense ministry officials on December 11, President Vladimir Putin warned against “provocations” against the Russian military in Syria... MORE

The November 24 downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber by the Turkish air force has resulted in a serious deterioration in bilateral relations and the deployment of additional Russian units to Syria (see EDM, November 30, December 3), as well as an upsurge in anti-Turkish... MORE

Recent reports suggest that the number of foreign recruits to the Islamic State (IS) has increased two-fold over the past year and a half (Gazeta.ru, December 8). At the same time, based on open sources, a group of researchers have found that the flow of... MORE

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan has estimated that 2,000–3,000 militants from Russia are fighting in Syria (Mk.ru, November 16), half the number given by Russian President Vladimir Putin (Portal-credo.ru, October 16). Syrian President Bashar al-Assad provides an even higher figure: he estimates that... MORE

On November 21, the authorities in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi erected a monument to Russian Tsar Alexander II. The monument was part of a larger project called the Alley of Russian Fame (Alleya Rossiyskoy Slavy). The head of the project, Mikhail Serdyukov,... MORE

United National Movement (UNM), Georgia’s once powerful political party, which spent nine years (2003–2012) in power, is in serious trouble. The start of December 2015 brought new revelations of the party’s internal power struggle and fragmentation, which turns out to be much deeper than previously... MORE