Chechen special services operating under the auspices of Ramzan Kadyrov and trained by an ex-major of the Russian security services’ Alpha group, Daniil Martynov, keep expanding their activities to new areas. Martynov helped Kadyrov to rid himself of his special bodyguards from the Russian Federal... MORE

During the past 16 years of battling militants in the North Caucasus, Russia’s security services and police have generally avoided taking prisoners among the insurgents. This tendency was recently displayed once again in an operation conducted in Makhachkala. According to the official version of events,... MORE

European Union officials hope that among the outcomes of the upcoming May 2015 Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit in Riga will be a new and more flexible cooperation framework for redefining the EU’s relations with Armenia and other neighboring countries. Indeed, Latvia, which currently holds the... MORE

Until now, Georgia’s economic situation has been most clearly defined by its movement closer to Europe thanks to last year’s signing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement with the European Union (Slon.ru, July 21, 2014) as well as episodic disputes with its... MORE

On March 18, Russia marked the first anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. The extent of the celebrations in southern Russia varied dramatically, according to Kavkazsky Uzel news agency reporters who were on the scene. Twenty people gathered for celebrations in Sochi, but about 13,000... MORE

President Vladimir Putin has been organizing so many military exercises in so many parts of the Russian Federation (see EDM, March 19)—a process that has required Moscow to shift units from one area to another—that it is virtually impossible to say just where he intends... MORE

A well-known Russian expert on the North Caucasus, Konstantin Kazenin, has warned that the paramilitary groups of North Caucasus leaders may end up destabilizing the Russian Federation. According to Kazenin, several leaders from the North Caucasus have created essentially private armies, which defend their patrons... MORE

As the militants of the armed Islamic resistance in the North Caucasus began taking oaths of allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (see EDM, January 30), the Russian authorities began looking for ways to confront them. On March 11, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev... MORE