On September 17–19, elections to Russia’s State Duma (lower house of Parliament) were unlawfully staged in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia—territories seized from Moldova and Georgia, respectively. Russia also unlawfully staged elections to its Duma in the occupied territories in Ukraine’s Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk)... MORE

On September 6–10, Azerbaijan and Turkey held joint special forces exercises in the Lachin region of Azerbaijan, marking the first time Turkish troops carried out military operations in the Azerbaijani territories liberated as a result of the 44-day Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020)... MORE

Demography is not destiny except over the long term, it is often said. But for Russia, that time may be now. Accelerating population decline, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing migration from the countryside to large urban centers, mean that vast swaths of the... MORE

On September 6, former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who now heads the Executive Committee of the National Council of Reforms in Ukraine, announced that he will come back to Georgia for the upcoming October 2 municipal race. According to all polls, Saakashvili’s United National Movement... MORE

With the emergence of China and other manufacturing powerhouses in Asia that constantly seek access to new markets, the Caucasus has become attractive as a transit route for the movement of goods between the two parts of the Eurasian continent. Georgia (and by extension Armenia)... MORE

When the five Caspian littoral states signed a maritime delimitation pact in August 2018, they additionally agreed not to allow any outside power to have a military role in this landlocked sea (RITM Eurasia, August 14, 2018). But in the three years since that accord... MORE

As new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi forms his government, Baku and Tehran are expected to enter the next uneasy and uncertain phase in their bilateral relations. In particular, issues relating to the unfinished railway segment of the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) and the controversial hydropower... MORE

As the United States military completes its retreat from Afghanistan, Russia, despite its own humiliating 1989 exit from the war-torn country, has been gloating (see EDM, August 19), apparently hoping to expand its influence in the region and fill the power vacuum left by the... MORE

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan has sparked concern in Central Asia and Russia that this development will generate refugee flows into both regions and that among those migrants will be members of radical Islamist groups who might mobilize extremist forces within the five countries of... MORE

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan threatens to destabilize the North Caucasus for three interrelated reasons. First, the Taliban victory is certain to inspire Islamist rebel groups in that region of southern Russia to act, just as earlier Islamist victories in the Middle East motivated them... MORE