To read Part One, please click here. For all their personal friendship, President Petro Poroshenko’s appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili as governor of Odesa province in Ukraine is the ultimate merit-based appointment. In Georgia, Saakashvili had presided over the boldest and most successful reform programs of... MORE

Researchers have compared the North Caucasus and the Balkans as regions with similar historical and political trajectories (see for example Janusz Bugajski, Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared, The Jamestown Foundation, 2014). This view has also gained traction among Russian experts. With the... MORE

Both due to the other challenges Ukraine faces and because its leaders believe a democratic and European government should not become involved in religious affairs, Ukrainian officials have avoided tackling key issues of religion. But now Moscow Patriarch Kirill has left Kyiv with little choice... MORE

At the May 21–22 Riga summit of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), Belarus was represented by Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei. Nothing groundbreaking was achieved at Riga with regard to Belarus. The country refused to sign the summit declaration’s first version, which had condemned Russia... MORE

On May 30, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia, as chairman of the state administration (governor) of Ukraine’s Odesa province. On the preceding day, Poroshenko conferred Ukrainian citizenship to Saakashvili “as a matter of national interest of Ukraine.” The cabinet... MORE

Cossacks in St. Peterbsurg recently unveiled a bust of President Vladimir Putin in the guise of a Roman emperor (Gazeta.ru, May 17). The bust, made from synthetic materials, was originally designed to be two and half times larger and made from bronze. It features a... MORE

The Russian government moved against Circassian activists in late May 2015, coinciding with events marking the 151st anniversary of the end of the Russian-Circassian war. The authorities targeted two well-known leaders of the Circassian movement, Ruslan Kesh and Adnan Khuade. On May 23, police in... MORE

Russia’s deteriorating economic situation is exacerbating the various social problems in the country, and the authorities are apparently finding no other way to deal with such issues but to shut down all outlets for public debate. Last week (May 28), President Vladimir Putin expanded the... MORE

On September 24, 2014, the U.S. Department of State listed Harakat Sham al-Islam (HSI) as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” (U.S. Department of State, September 24, 2014). The listing described HSI, which was formed in August 2013, as a “Moroccan-led terrorist organization operating in Syria principally... MORE

In an Arabic-language statement issued over Twitter on April 23, the Iranian hardline Sunni Baloch militant organization Ansar al-Furqan announced the death of its leader, Abu Hafs al-Balochi (Twitter, April 23). The statement said al-Balochi had been killed the previous day after “a long confrontation”... MORE