Latest Articles about Domestic/Social
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Can Russia Derail Moldova From the European Course?
Russia’s successes in derailing the European Union’s association agreements with Armenia and with Ukraine have raised concerns about a possible repeat success for Russia in Moldova. Toward that goal, the Kremlin seems set to exploit Moldova’s parliamentary election campaign, which started in the second week... MORE
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Ukraine’s Crisis and Federalization Options
Federation as a possible way out of Ukraine’s political crisis is currently at the center of domestic political and expert discourse. But meanwhile, the new outburst of violence in the streets of Kyiv on February 18 may lead to an escalation of the crisis in... MORE
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Hesitantly Assertive Germany Sizes up Imperiously Assertive Russia
Absorbed with the drama on the Sochi ski tracks and hockey rinks, the Russians cannot fail to notice that the athletic superpower that is confidently leading in the Olympic medal count is actually Germany. Relations with this key partner used to be so important for... MORE
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Setting the Right Tone on Belarus: A Sequel
Not a single book about Belarus omits the issue of Belarusians’ deficiency in the area of national consolidation/identity and of perilously close (in a sense of undermining a separate identity) ties with Russia. Yet, recently, two national identity boosters have come along. First and foremost,... MORE
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Despite Olympics, Russian Government Expands Crackdown on Circassian Activists
On February 14, Russian police arrested Asker Sokht, the head of the Circassian civil organization Adyge Khase, in the city of Krasnodar, the capital of the region hosting the Olympic Games in Sochi. Even though the official reasons for the arrest were unknown, observers noted... MORE
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Immigrants Seen Triggering Clashes Along the Volga
The influx of migrant workers from Central Asia and the South Caucasus and of workers from the North Caucasus has triggered clashes in Moscow and other Russian cities, but soon this flow appears likely to spark violence in places far from the Russian capital. According... MORE
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Rebranding Kazakhstan by Changing Its Name
President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suggested changing his country’s name from Kazakhstan to “Kazakh Yeli”—meaning the “Land of the Kazakhs”—during a visit to the nation’s oil capital Atyrau on February 6. By dropping the “stan” from Kazakhstan, the country would differentiate itself from its Central Asian... MORE
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President Nazarbayev Discusses Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy Priorities
On February 5, President Nursultan Nazarbayev held his annual meeting with the foreign ambassadors and lead representatives of the local offices of major international organizations in Astana. More than 80 senior foreign diplomats accredited to Kazakhstan heard the president’s speech at the Akorda presidential residence... MORE
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Chechens Fingered by Moscow Arrested in Several European Countries but Then Released
Following Russia’s peculiar behavior in regard to sharing information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev with the United States (https://polit.ru/news/2013/04/22/tamerlan/), Moscow decided to pursue the same policies toward Chechens living in Europe. The exact figure or number of Chechens residing in Europe is unknown. According to some unconfirmed... MORE
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North Caucasus Leaders Seek Greater Autonomy and Access to Local Natural Resources
At the meeting of the Russian Ministry for Regional Development on February 4, Dagestan’s leader Ramazan Abdulatipov said the central government in Moscow should give the regions the right to administer regional resources if it cannot do it properly itself. Abdulatipov provided an example, noting... MORE