Latest Articles about Domestic/Social
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Russian Military Says It Will Lift Restrictions on Drafting North Caucasians
On March 31, a Russian Joint Staff official, Lieutenant General Vasiliy Tonkoshkurov, made a surprise statement about the country’s conscription campaign at a press conference on the spring 2014 military draft campaign in Russia. During the event Tonkoshkurov announced that residents of the North Caucasus... MORE
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Victory Over North Caucasus Insurgency Remains Elusive for Moscow
The Russian authorities have admitted that the situation involving the insurgency in the North Caucasus has no clear positive outlook for the government. The Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Interior in the North Caucasus Federal District confirmed this assessment in a report on... MORE
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Signs of Inter-Ethnic Conflict Reappear in Disputed Border Area of North Ossetia
Tensions have recently spiked not in the Republic of Ingushetia itself, but in the border area of neighboring North Ossetia, which is populated by ethnic Ingush. Residents of the village of Maiskoe rose up in protest after the law enforcement agencies of North Ossetia–Alania arrested... MORE
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Putin Hovering on the Brink of a Massive Invasion of Ukraine
The Ukrainian crisis and the “reunification” of Crimea with the rest of Russia dominated President Vladimir Putin’s almost four-hour-long televised national phone-in—an annual PR performance that had been previously dominated by discussion of pensions, utility payments, inflation, wages and other internal “bread and butter” issues.... MORE
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Ideological Arguments in Belarus: Is the Cold War Back?
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka gave an interview to the Russian TV channel NTV on April 13. In it, he assigned most of the blame for the current crisis in Ukraine to its previous government—specifically, to its lack of attention to the Ukrainian economy and to combatting... MORE
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Circassians Say Russian Citizenship Should Be Equal for All Ethnic Groups
On April 4, Russia’s State Duma passed a law that simplifies the process of acquiring Russian citizenship. The new legislation enables people to obtain a Russian passport if they speak Russian and their immediate ancestors lived on the territory of the Russian Federation, Russian Empire... MORE
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Chechen Population Set to Explode
Much has been made in Moscow and the West in recent months about falling fertility rates—the number of children per woman over a lifetime—among the Muslim nationalities of the North Caucasus, with some Russian and Western experts suggesting that the Russian Federation no longer faces... MORE
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Early Presidential Election Campaign Starts in Ukraine
On April 4, the Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission completed the registration of candidates for the country’s snap presidential election. It had been scheduled for May 25 by parliament in February, immediately after the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yet, the campaign has already attracted some... MORE
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Ukrainians Replace North Caucasians as the Universal Villains in Russia
The Russian invasion of Crimea and the tensions with the West that followed it have created a new public climate in Russia with regard to the North Caucasus. “Today, when Russia has found itself practically on the verge of war with its closest neighbor, all... MORE
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Georgia Is Reeling After President Obama’s NATO Statement
Statements and declarations about Georgia made by Western countries and especially the United States carry big weight in Tbilisi. Every one of them is read, re-read, analyzed, and scrutinized by Georgian politicians, experts and ordinary citizens alike. US President Barack Obama’s March 26 statement in... MORE