The leadership of Ingushetia is being forced to follow the orders of Kremlin strategists, which define how the situation will evolve in this, the smallest republic in the Russian Federation. Arguably, the most important problem for Moscow in Ingushetia is the armed underground jamaat in... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has reached a staggering 82.3 percent, the Kremlin-controlled pollster VTsIOM reported this week (March 27). Last January, the same polling outfit reported Putin’s rating at 60.6 percent. The almost bloodless capture and swift annexation of Crimea has been boosting Putin’s... MORE

Belarus’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs may have set a record for evasiveness while formulating its March 19 statement vis-à-vis the crisis in Ukraine. “Belarus cannot be indifferent to the events in Ukraine, including the referendum held on March 16, 2014, in the Crimea, and the... MORE

Shortly after the swift proclamation of Crimea’s short-lived independence, Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Chechnya would invest in Crimea and build close ties with it. However, Kadyrov’s notorious reputation is more likely to repel the residents of Crimea than win them over. On March 16, as... MORE

A severe rift appears to be opening up within the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) coalition. Even more so, the coalition might be headed toward complete disintegration as a political alliance. On March 18, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia and the leader of... MORE

On March 19, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev held a government meeting in Grozny, Chechnya. Two primary issues were discussed—disrupting the financial channels that feed the insurgents in the North Caucasus and developing additional measures to prevent extremist outbursts in the Russian Federation and,... MORE

After seven months without any communication from the Caucasus Emirate’s emir, Doku Umarov, the leadership of the North Caucasian rebels’ velayats on March 18 officially admitted the death of their leader (https://kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2014/03/18/103603.shtml).The North Caucasian jihadists also announced their new leader—Abu Muhammad, who was the Caucasus... MORE

On March 21, 2014, three days after he signed the treaty that “legalized” the annexation of Crimea as a new subject of the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin officially annexed Crimea. The March 18 treaty was co-signed by the speaker of the Crimean Parliament, Vladimir... MORE

Only a year since assuming the top Party post in November 2012, Xi Jinping has emerged as the strongest Chinese leader in decades. His sweeping anti-corruption and mass line campaigns have shaken the bureaucracy, consolidated his power, and removed the supporters of former security tsar... MORE

Since the Third Plenum in November of last year, a couple of interesting documents have appeared that have begun to add meat to the Plenum’s bare bones recommendations for reforming China’s legal system. Efforts appear to be underway to centralize court finance, end Re-education Through... MORE