Municipal elections in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities in the spring will undoubtedly see another round of opposition demonstrations, with Russia ready for some overt involvement for the first time. Moscow is openly advertising its support for former Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, leader of the... MORE

Reversing Carl Von Clausewitz’s dictum, Russia’s emergent policy toward Georgia is essentially a continuation of war by political means. Russia’s 2008 war and three-year economic blockade sought to change Georgia’s Western orientation through regime change in Tbilisi. By the end of 2009, however, Moscow evidently... MORE

The end of 2009 saw a significant cooling of relations between the United States and Azerbaijan. Frustration in Baku with Washington’s policies, if not addressed, might significantly damage the bilateral relationship in the long run and undermine US strategic objectives in the energy-rich Caspian region.Foremost,... MORE

On December 28, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed changing the federal law regarding the numbers of seats in regional parliaments throughout the Russian Federation. The new legislation is designed to establish rules governing the number of seats in regional parliaments, which stipulate a minimum and... MORE

A massive flurry of official statements was released to the Russian mass media by politicians, analysts, and experts on Russia summing up the year 2009 in the North Caucasus. After an assessment of these statements, it is increasingly obvious that the situation in the region... MORE

On January 4, the operational headquarters in Chechnya announced that the zone of the counter-terrorist operation in the Achkhoi-Martan and Urus-Martan districts, in the republic’s southwestern foothills, had been expanded. Law enforcement officials were quoted saying that they had additional information about possible terrorist suspects... MORE

In one of the worst terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus in recent months, six policemen were reportedly killed and 19 wounded yesterday (January 6) when a suicide bomber detonated a jeep at a transport police base in the Reduktorny district of Makhachkala, the capital... MORE

On December 22, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s representative in southern Russia, Vladimir Ustinov, gave his annual speech on growing security threats in the North Caucasus, addressed to the Federation Council in Moscow. In listing the most dangerous threats to the security of the Russian Federation,... MORE

On December 17, Ingushetia’s President Yunus-bek Yevkurov and the head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, signed an agreement on developing good-neighborly relations between the two republics. The agreement stipulates a plan of joint actions for the republican governments and government controlled civil organizations in 2010.... MORE

December 11 marked the anniversary of the beginning of the first Chechen War. It was then, in December 1994, that President Boris Yeltsin decided to militarily force the Chechen people to abandon the idea of independence. As is known, the Russian army lost that war... MORE