The Chinese government is known for its heavy-handed censorship of the country’s Internet, now with a user base of about 665 million. After the blockage or shut down of a series of social media accounts, commercial websites, text messaging applications, online libraries and cloud computing... MORE

Chechens who emigrated to Europe are not in an enviable situation today, as any terrorist threat around the world invariably prompts the security services to investigate them closely. France’s security services attempted to connect the January 7 terrorist attack in Paris on the satirical magazine... MORE

In December 2014, Russian legislators quietly passed new legislation that allows Moscow to remove part of the region from under the control of that region’s government in order “to speed up socio-economic development” in the North Caucasus republics. As a Dagestani analyst Rasul Kadiev points... MORE

No one was more encouraged by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military moves in Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) than the leaders of Transnistria. This breakaway Slavic-dominated region in northeastern Moldova viewed Moscow’s actions as opening the way to the... MORE

The revelations of Alexander Sytnik, who recently left his position as a senior fellow at the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, a government-funded think tank, provides a rare glimpse into the inner mechanisms of policymaking in Russia. In his personal account of the run-up to... MORE

The most talked about subject in Kabardino-Balkaria so far in 2015 is the prison sentences passed handed down to the militants who participated in the insurrection in the republican capital in 2005. On October 13 of that year, groups of militants under the command of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Local ataman (historically, a Cossack leader) rule proliferates in the power vacuum of the “Luhansk People’s republic” (LPR). Russian forces seized this area from... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Outside Luhansk City and its environs, the “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) territory is splintered into de facto fiefdoms and portions of no man’s land. Each fiefdom has its own ataman (leader)... MORE

The situation in Armenia has suddenly became extremely tense after six members of the Avetisyan family, including two children, were murdered on January 12 in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, on January 12; meanwhile, the family’s six-month old baby, also wounded in the attack, is... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia is building secessionist proto-states on parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (collectively known as the Donbas region). This effort is advancing with relative ease in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) but is faltering in the “Luhansk... MORE