Radical Russian Orthodox fundamentalist Shiigumen Sergey, who controls a monastery in the Urals and has attracted a wide following across Russia, has demanded that Patriarch Kirill and President Vladimir Putin both leave their posts and hand their powers over to him (Ahilla.ru, July 13). That... MORE

The United States Congress may suspend around 15 percent of US financial assistance to Georgia, according to the draft Fiscal Year 2021 State and Foreign Operations Funding bill recently approved by the US House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. The funding... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political “triumph” in securing approval for the set of amendments to the constitution in a public vote on July 1 (see EDM, July 2) has brought neither cheerful celebrations nor benevolent rewards to loyal subjects. Instead, the government has begun meting... MORE

For the third time in history, Sochi has become the epicenter of the conflict between Russians and Circassians. In 1864, it was the place from which tsarist forces exiled to the Ottoman Empire most of the Circassians who had resisted the Russian advance for more... MORE

Ivan Safronov, Jr. (30), a former Kommersant and Vedomosti defense correspondent, was arrested by the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) counterintelligence arm, in Moscow, on July 7, 2020, accused of treason (spying for the West and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). After graduating from journalism school... MORE

The end of June marked the beginning of a (likely brief) respite in Belarus’s presidential election campaign, but it may prove to be the lull before the storm. After the elimination of former deputy foreign minister and Minsk High-Tech Park founder Valery Tsepkalo’s candidacy because... MORE

Another critic of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow ruler Ramzan Kadyrov was killed in Austria. On the evening of July 4, the man was shot in the head and died in a parking lot next to a shopping center in the Vienna suburb of Gerasdorf. Initially, reports said... MORE

The newly approved amendments to the Russian constitution went into force on July 4. The night before, President Vladimir Putin signed the relevant executive order. According to official data, in the elections, which took place on July 1, the amendments received the support of 77.92... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   A disastrous fuel spill at the CHPP-3 combined heat and power plant in Norilsk (owned and operated by the Norilsk Nickel Group) has resulted in massive contamination of the local environment and will likely incur huge financial... MORE

The Russian government continues to deny news accounts that its security forces paid the Taliban to kill members of the United States Armed Forces stationed in Afghanistan; but at the same time, Moscow has exploited these reports at home to generate support for the Kremlin.... MORE