The amir (commander) of the Khasavyurt jamaat, Islam Abu Ibragim (a.k.a. Islam Muradov), recently declared that Muslims in Dagestan should pay a tax to the Islamic State (IS). Ibragim is among those militants who left the Caucasus Emirate and pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu... MORE

Researchers have compared the North Caucasus and the Balkans as regions with similar historical and political trajectories (see for example Janusz Bugajski, Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared, The Jamestown Foundation, 2014). This view has also gained traction among Russian experts. With the... MORE

On May 30, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia, as chairman of the state administration (governor) of Ukraine’s Odesa province. On the preceding day, Poroshenko conferred Ukrainian citizenship to Saakashvili “as a matter of national interest of Ukraine.” The cabinet... MORE

The Russian government moved against Circassian activists in late May 2015, coinciding with events marking the 151st anniversary of the end of the Russian-Circassian war. The authorities targeted two well-known leaders of the Circassian movement, Ruslan Kesh and Adnan Khuade. On May 23, police in... MORE

At the Eastern Partnership summit, held on May 21–22, in Riga, Latvia, the European Union delayed granting Georgia (along with it Ukraine) visa free travel rules for its citizens. Although Georgians were highly hopeful that their country would be granted a visa waiver for travel... MORE

Since the second half of the 18th century, when Catherine the Great realized that Russia would not be able to Christianize the Muslims in its conquered territories, the Russian government decided to give some autonomy to Muslims. In turn, the latter organized their lives according... MORE

One of the most “fashionable” Islamic preachers in the North Caucasus, Nadir Medetov, has unexpectedly surfaced in the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East after being put under house arrest by the Russian security services for the past 6–7 months. How... MORE

On May 19, President Vladimir Putin addressed a joint meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations and the Council for Russian Language. “The preservation and development of the Russian language and all the languages of the peoples of the country are essential for the harmonization... MORE

The annual Circassian Day of Remembrance and Mourning was marked, on May 21, by Circassians across the North Caucasus and outside Russia. A large procession took place in Maikop, the capital of Adygea (Natpressru.info, May 22). An official rally also took place in Karachaevo-Cherkessia (Riakchr.ru,... MORE

Immediately after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested for carrying out the deadly bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon, multiple support groups mushroomed online, particularly on Russian social media. In the two years since Tsarnaev’s arrest, the number of groups has decreased somewhat and some of them... MORE