The ruling coalition won most local elections across Ukraine on October 25, according to preliminary figures. Results from the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) are expected next week, but it is already clear that compared to the 2010 local elections, the kleptocratic elites who used to... MORE

On October 17, Cossack groups with combat experience held a conference in the city of Mineralnye Vody in Stavropol region. According to the organizers, the conference participants were veterans of the conflicts in Chechnya, Transnistria, Tajikistan, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Karabakh, and the Donetsk and... MORE

While the outcome of this past month’s presidential elections in Belarus continues to be discussed, the major news refrains have become the debate on a Russian airbase in Belarus, rapprochement with the West, the prospects for economic reform, and labor migration to and from Belarus.... MORE

The Soviet government tried to force out the Pontic Greeks from the southern part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the early 1920s, and then subjected that community to three waves of deportation to Central Asia in 1937, 1942 and 1949. Now,... MORE

Georgian prosecutors have questioned the head of the Rustavi 2 TV channel, Nika Gvaramia, in connection to his accusations of government pressure on his company (Civil Georgia, October 22). Gvaramia had claimed that a certain businessman, Aleksi Akhvlediani, told him on behalf of the government... MORE

A month after local elections were held in Dagestan, key municipalities in the republic still do not have legitimate authorities. An open and latent political struggle has ensued in the republic’s most populous cities—Makhachkala, Khasavyurt, Derbent and Buinaksk. The republic’s flamboyant governor, Ramazan Abdulatipov, attempted... MORE

A new milestone has passed in the trial of Alexander Belov, the outspoken former leader of the ultra-right Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) and a current member of the coordinating council for the Russian extreme nationalist opposition. The court completed its investigation, on September 8,... MORE

Russian authorities have unrelentingly cracked down on the Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (The Party of Islamic Liberation). Indeed, Russia’s Supreme Court first designated the Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization on February 14, 2003, and thus for over a decade has officially outlawed the group... MORE

Over the past ten years, the Russian government has repeatedly claimed that the situation in the North Caucasus has stabilized (Regnum.ru, October 14). Speaking at a meeting of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAK) in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, on October 13, Federal Security Service (FSB) head Aleksandr... MORE

A new 226-page book written by a group of scholars widely reputed to be close to the Russian security services argues that Islamic State (IS) is, first and foremost, an ideological phenomenon. As such, this militant group can only be contained and then defeated on... MORE