Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the United States’ ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev descended on Odesa in separate visits (July 2–July 8), to confer with Governor Mikheil Saakashvili there. Georgia’s former president aims to turn this undeveloped province of Ukraine into... MORE

Georgians have shown a keen interest in the events in far-away Greece, which has been on the verge of leaving the Eurozone, if not the European Union itself. All news programs on Georgian TV now routinely begin with the latest news about negotiations between EU... MORE

In April, a sharia court decreed that a range of orders issued by Amir Salakhuddin Shishani (Feyzulla Margoshvili), the long-time leader of the Jaish al-Muhadjireen wal-Ansar (JMA), were in breach of sharia norms. JMA is an insurgent group fighting the Syrian regime made up mainly... MORE

In a surprising turn of events, on July 8, the Russian state-run natural gas monopoly Gazprom canceled a contract with the Italian oil and gas services group Saipem. The two companies were supposed to jointly build the first line of Turkish Stream, the Moscow-backed pipeline... MORE

In the Russian-occupied Georgian region of Abkhazia, the last couple weeks of June 2015 were dominated by news of an unusual spat between the typically submissive Abkhazian separatists, on the one hand, and their Russian patrons, on the other. The disagreement between the two sides... MORE

The Caucasus Emirate (CE) is refusing to exit the political arena of the North Caucasus. After all the well-known amirs of the North Caucasus jamaats pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s (IS) so-called caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (see EDM, June 26), one would have expected... MORE

On June 22, the vice president of the International Circassian Association (ICA), Adam Bogus, announced that he was suspending his membership in the organization until its next leadership elections. Bogus, who is from Adygea, also refused to take part in an ICA conference that was... MORE

The protests in Yerevan against rising electricity prices have sparked a debate over the motives, expectations, and impact of this public outcry (see EDM, June 27). Energy shortfalls and crises have long been a sensitive subject for Armenia due to the painful experiences of energy... MORE

On June 27, the Circassian organization Adyge Khase held a conference in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Participants accused the republic’s authorities of neglecting Circassian villages and putting pressure on Circassian businesses, calling for an extraordinary conference of the Circassian people. Circassians in Karachaevo-Cherkessia accuse the republican authorities of... MORE

On June 26, one day after the Russian security services killed Magomed-Ali Aliev and his wife Leila in Nazran, Ingushetia (Topwar.ru, June 25; see EDM, July 1), law enforcement agencies in the Chechen capital Grozny killed two suspected terrorists. According to the Chechen government forces,... MORE