On May 6, Poland awarded its first “Solidarity Prize” to Mustafa Cemilev for his ongoing contributions to peace, democracy and human rights. According to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the actual award ceremony will be held on June 3, in Warsaw, and it will... MORE

On September 24, 2006, almost immediately after Doku Umarov was appointed president of Ichkeria, he started reviewing the structure of the armed jihadi insurgency in Russia. Umarov merged his few jihadi subordinates in the Volga and the Ural regions with the North Caucasian militancy, establishing... MORE

For all their lack of capacity (let alone legitimacy) to organize any kind of voting, pro-Russia forces in Ukraine’s Donbas are proceeding with secession referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces on May 11 as scheduled.Russian President Vladimir Putin had, on May 7, offered to... MORE

Dagestan is the largest and currently the most dangerous republic in the North Caucasus due to its high levels of rebel violence. The republic, however, is also no stranger to peaceful protests and political struggle. On April 12, supporters of Said Amirov, the ousted mayor... MORE

In sharp contrast to his handling of Western leaders in the course of the Ukrainian crisis, Vladimir Putin and the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea have consistently underestimated the Crimean Tatars and their irreplaceable leader, Mustafa Cemilev.  Putin thought he could buy off the Crimean... MORE

On April 25–26, an international academic conference called “Circassians: History and Modernity” took place in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. Underscoring the high profile of the event, the head of the republic, Yuri Kokov, delivered the keynote address. Kokov’s message was simple and transparent: he attempted to dampen... MORE

The official mass media in Uzbekistan is not discussing or analyzing the situation surrounding Crimea. Therefore, from the outside, it is difficult to discern the local people’s perspectives on this issue. Nevertheless, an analysis of the online comments on local websites reveals that pro-Russian sentiment... MORE

The Cossack issue has become relevant in Russia against the backdrop of the outflow of ethnic Russians from the North Caucasus (https://expert.ru/ratings/izmenenie-doli-russkih-v-naselenii-respublik-severnogo-kavkaza/). Chechnya and Ingushetia have practically become ethnically homogeneous and Dagestan will soon become the next republic to shed its ethnic Russian population entirely... MORE

Few signs existed that there would be any change in the brotherly and neighborly relations between Ramzan Kadyrov and Saigidpasha Umakhanov—the mayor of Khasavyurt, a city on Dagestan’s administrative border with Chechnya. Umakhanov has long been considered one of the main figures in Dagestan’s political... MORE

This week, on May 1, an estimated 100,000-strong, pro-government demonstration of “working people” was allowed on Red Square for the first time since 1990. The march was organized by state-controlled trade unions and supported by the ruling United Russia party as well as the Kremlin-backed... MORE