Bad news hit the Kremlin thick and fast last week, but on Friday evening (August 1), President Vladimir Putin answered a phone call from US President Barack Obama, who again stressed that the Kremlin’s mounting problems can be resolved diplomatically (whitehouse.gov, August 1). Putin’s personal... MORE

While the downfall of “big tiger” Zhou Yongkang has proven the extent of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s power, it is not clear whether his anti-corruption crusade will continue—or, more importantly, whether Xi will push forward real political reforms that could permanently reduce rent-seeking, abuse of... MORE

The body of Anzor Astemirov, one of the best known leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian armed resistance, who was killed in 2010, was handed over to his relatives for burial recently, more than four years after his death. Astemirov was one of the founders of the... MORE

The geopolitical perspective that Belarus is being squeezed between Russia and the European Union remains relevant. New information continues to reveal modest but noticeable attempts to improve Belarus’s relations with the West (see EDM, July 23) as well as the ambivalent role of Russia, Belarus’s... MORE

One of the favorite activities of the governors of the North Caucasian republics is to frequently count the number of rebels in their respective republics. Every year they lower the figure for the number of rebels in their region and highlight for Moscow their personal... MORE

On Tuesday, Chinese official media confirmed the long-anticipated arrest of Zhou Yongkang (Xinhua, July 29). Zhou, a former member of the Politboro Standing Committee and head of China’s state security apparatus, is the first member of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) highest echelon to fall... MORE

On July 21, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced the first major cabinet reshuffle since the Georgian Dream (GD) coalition came to power in October 2012. The shake-up affected seven ministers: two were moved from one cabinet post to another, while the other five lost... MORE

A series of mass arrests of practicing Muslims was carried out in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala and other cities in the republic in July. At the time, a Muslim parishioner described to Kavkazsky Uzel what was happening: “When a Muslim exits a mosque, the police are... MORE

Read Part One here.      On the ground in Ukraine’s east, the most significant Russia-backed separatist field commanders continue operating autonomously from Igor Girkin/Strelkov—the self-proclaimed military leader of the pro-Russia rebel forces and “defense minister” of the “Donetsk People’s Republic [“DPR”].” They basically “coordinate,” taking... MORE

On July 28, Russian state television presented Vladimir Antyufeyev as “acting chairman of the council of ministers of the Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR prime minister],” and featured an interview with Antyufeyev from Donetsk (Rossiya 1 TV, July 28). Earlier on that day, Antyufeyev himself told... MORE