Some 500 demonstrators in a makeshift camp, many of them carrying long sticks and wearing masks, defied police calls to end an unlawful rally on the night of May 25 – 26 in downtown Tbilisi. The police preempted the militants’ declared intention to use violence... MORE

Moscow has stimulated the radical opposition’s actions in Tbilisi (see EDM, May 24), and stands ready to exploit the unrest. Russian state television channels provide sympathetic, over-dramatized coverage of the street action in Tbilisi, for playback to Georgian audiences. Moscow portrays the violence-prone militants as... MORE

Armenia has decided to almost triple the number of its troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led multinational mission operating there under NATO’s aegis. The decision is a further indication that the South Caucasus state is continuing to seek closer security ties with... MORE

The militant opposition has launched its annual campaign to topple the Georgian government. One wing, describing itself as People’s Assembly, is holding daily street rallies in Tbilisi from May 21 onward; while the other wing, Georgian Party, has scheduled a “Day of Rage” for May... MORE

(Part One)Georgian-Israeli relations are in crisis, and the recent decision by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili not to pardon two Israeli businessmen jailed after a Georgian court found them guilty of bribery is not going to improve the situation in the near future. The incident has... MORE

On May 20, the Georgian parliament recognized the mass killings and deportations of Circassians from the North Caucasus in the nineteenth century as “genocide.” The resolution, which passed by a vote of 95 to 0, said that pre-planned “mass killings of the Circassians by Tsarist... MORE

Armenia’s domestic political landscape looks set to undergo a significant rearrangement that could have profound implications for the next national elections due in 2012 and 2013. President Serzh Sargsyan has all but warded off another challenge to his rule from the country’s largest opposition force... MORE

Kazakhstan is increasingly uncomfortable within the Customs Union with Belarus and Russia due to the constant attempts by the Kremlin to politicize the structure originally intended to boost trade relations and ensure free movement of citizens, goods and capital within the union. Recently, Grigoriy Onishenko... MORE

With the onset of warm weather, radical opposition groups in Tbilisi plan their seasonal regime-change campaign. Judging by their latest declarations, their tactic remains unchanged since 2007: instigating disorder in the capital’s streets to provoke the authorities into using force, hoping thereby to de-legitimize the... MORE

On April 25 and 26, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov paid a “working visit” to the occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia unilaterally “recognizes” as states. He visited Russian army and border troop cantonments, met with the Moscow-installed local leaders, and used... MORE