Ukraine is asking for an international, armed police mission under Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) auspices, to be deployed in the secessionist Donetsk-Luhansk territory. Russia and its local proxies hold the monopoly on military presence and policing in that part of Ukraine.... MORE

No region of the Russian Federation has a greater number of young men who could qualify to serve in the Russian military than does the North Caucasus, the combined result of rapid demographic growth and the absence of a Russian military draft there for most... MORE

On April 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing a new federal security service, the Russian National Guard, which largely inherits the troops from the Ministry of Interior. The director of the new federal service has the status of a Russian government minister... MORE

On April 11, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted a government official as saying that “according to the preliminary information, three suicide bombers blew themselves up near the Novoselitsky district police station in Stavropol region (RIA Novosti, April 11). The first surprising fact... MORE

Leonid Tibilov, the de facto leader of the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia, (Tskhinvali region), declared, on April 11, that his government is planning to hold a referendum about whether to join the Russian Federation. The vote will be held before August of this... MORE

The outbreak of clashes along the line of contact in the separatist region of Karabakh, which began early in the morning on April 2 and lasted until April 5, was the most dangerous since the 1994 ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The number of... MORE

The so-called Islamic State (IS) is increasingly infiltrating Russia, threatening its security (Lenta.ru, June 24, 2015). It has been less than one year since the IS claimed to have a “province” in the North Caucasus (Polit.ru, June 24, 2015), and now the organization claims to... MORE

At the beginning of March 2016, a large coalition of organizations opposed to the president of the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia, Raul Khajimba, started gathering signatures calling for a referendum. The proposed question for the referendum is “Do you consider it necessary to hold... MORE

The new (March) quarterly survey by the Western-funded Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS)—a polling firm widely considered by Western experts to be the most reputable such organization operating inside Belarus—confirmed a fundamental cultural proximity between Belarus and Russia. According to the results,... MORE

On April 2, a conflict erupted between Dagestanis and Kalmyks in Kalmykia’s capital Elista. A Dagestani wrestler, Said Osmanov, who was on a visit to Kalmykia reportedly went inside a Buddhist temple, urinated, and kicked the face of a Buddha statue. Moreover, Osmanov posted the... MORE