On March 13, Alexei Navalny, arguably the most popular Russian opposition figure, weighed in on the crisis surrounding the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Pointing to the fact that the Russian government does not allow the Russian people to hold referendums inside the country, Navalny asked... MORE

With tensions rising around the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, observers are increasingly drawing parallels to Chechnya. Crimea is an autonomous region within Ukraine—as Chechnya is within Russia—and has peculiarities that are likely to resonate in the future.The Russian Empire carved the Crimean Khanate out of... MORE

The Syrian conflict has created more reasons for the Russian government to be concerned about the North Caucasus. A new category of rebels has been added to the existing rebels of the Caucasus Emirate—Syrian militants whose roots are in the North Caucasus and who total... MORE

On March 5, the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, called on the regions of the Russian Federation to support the residents of Crimea and the eastern Ukrainian regions adjacent to Russia. The parliamentarians called on the Russian regional officials to provide... MORE

On February 19, 2014, the Third Session of the Trilateral Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey was held in Ganja (northwest Azerbaijan). After their ministerial—the first trilateral meeting following last year’s presidential elections in Azerbaijan and Georgia—the three sides adopted... MORE

On March 6, the government-funded company Northern Caucasus Resorts reported that the Russian Ministry for Regional Development approved including the Veduchi multi-purpose resort project in Chechnya’s special economic zone. The decision opens the way for investing in this enterprise under preferential conditions. According to the... MORE

On March 4, Stefan Fule, the European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy, came to Georgia on an official visit. He held high-level meetings with Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, and Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze (Channel 1 TV, Rustavi 2,... MORE

It has been obvious for years already that Moscow’s North Caucasus policy has been coordinated by one of the Kremlin’s working groups on the region. It has been unclear, however, whether this Kremlin working group on the North Caucasus was actually pursuing the same policy... MORE

Literally one month ago, this author wrote about how those opposed to the protesters in Kyiv’s Independence Square were saying that Chechens were among the protests and how the Russian side would be interested in spreading that rumor (www.jamestown.org/single/article_id=41938&no_cache=1#.UxLlQPQ4sfk). Chechen involvement in Ukraine would have... MORE

For the first time in recent memory, there was no official commemoration of the deportation of Chechens in 1944. The government’s scandalous refusal to mark the 70th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s deportation of the Chechens to Kazakhstan was quietly condemned by many people in Chechnya.... MORE