President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is “caught in a vice, which will only continue to tighten,” between democratically motivated Western pressures and Russia’s “interest in acquiring attractive Belarusian assets from a vulnerable Lukashenka,” according to David Kramer and Wess Mitchell (www.charter97.org, July 9). If so, Western sanctions... MORE

On July 6, a massive anti-government protest took place in the town of Baksan, Kabardino-Balkaria. An estimated 600 unarmed young men blocked a vital highway connecting the capital of the republic, Nalchik, with the neighboring Stavropol region. The protesters demanded that the authorities “put an... MORE

The failure of the tripartite Kazan summit on June 24 to resolve the standoff in Karabakh will undoubtedly have serious regional repercussions. Certainly they cast the insight and capability of Russian diplomacy and President Dmitry Medvedev’s leadership into question. Moscow clearly anticipated and even publicly... MORE

A number of incidents of insurgency-related violence were reported across the North Caucasus this past week.An improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered and defused by Federal Security Service (FSB) bomb disposal experts today (July 8) in Dagestan’s Kizilyurt district. The Kavkazsky Uzel website reported that... MORE

Events in the North Caucasus today increasingly are forcing more experts to review their forecasts for this region as militant activities intensify and the mood in Russian society shifts. Today, the question of splitting the North Caucasus off from Russia is discussed in wide circles... MORE

On July 5, President Dmitry Medvedev took part in a meeting of the presidential council for the development of civil society and human rights, which was held in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. The activities of the law enforcement agencies in the North Caucasus came under severe criticism... MORE

On June 20, the Forum of the National Unity of Abkhazia issued a statement about the nomination of a candidate for the presidency in the Georgian breakaway territory of Abkhazia. It is expected that Raul Khadzhimba will become the third candidate in the Abkhaz presidential... MORE

In his budget address for 2012-2014 on June 29, President Dmitry Medvedev designated decentralization as one of the Russian Federation’s state priorities. The Russian leader also called for privatization, lowering corporate taxes, the overall diminishing of the state’s role in economic activities and other measures... MORE

After the colonization of the North Caucasus by Russian troops in the eighteenth and nineteenth Centuries, Russia established Cossack settlements as a form of influence on the local populations. Serving as fortresses, these quasi-military settlements were tasked with protecting the lowlands from highlanders. In other... MORE

On June 26, the Lifenews.ru website quoted “experts” and North Caucasus law-enforcement sources as claiming that Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader and “emir” of the Caucasus Emirate, had received medical treatment in Turkey and returned to the North Caucasus. The website said that Umarov’s... MORE