“In the event of escalation in Crimea and Ukraine at large,” reads the February 28 editorial statement by Nasha Niva, “Belarus will need national unity and restraint. All the political arguments between the [Belarusian] government and the opposition would be worth putting on the back... MORE

Fifteen Dagestani organizations have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to fire the head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov. The Union of Patriotic Forces of Dagestan and the Assembly of the Indigenous Peoples of Dagestan organized a symposium on February 1. Following the symposium, which was titled... MORE

The two telephone conversations between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 2 and February 22 marked a dramatic deterioration of relations caused by the near-complete collapse of common ground in managing the crisis in Ukraine. The first discussion about... MORE

In the past week, many people in Chechnya saw an anonymous video of clashes at the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. The video was apparently recorded by a Chechen police officer, but the authorities, trying to conceal the clashes from the public, disliked the... MORE

As of at least Friday, February 28, unmarked Russian tanks are reportedly moving through the streets of Simferopol, the administrative capital of Crimea (https://guzei.com/online_tv/watch.php?online_tv_id=4919). The crisis situation on this Ukrainian peninsula, populated by majority ethnic Russians, has been escalating for the past several days. On... MORE

As the eyes of the world were riveted to the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, where weeks of violent street protests recently brought down the corrupt regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych, Russian-Kazakhstani relations have endured another test. On February 20, the founder and former leader... MORE

A flurry of publications and public statements comparing and contrasting Belarus and Ukraine (see EDM, February 18) continues. On February 23, Belarus celebrated the Day of the Homeland’s Defender, a national holiday inherited from the Soviet Union. In his holiday speech, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated... MORE

A large rally of Terek Cossacks took place in the city of Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, on February 16. The Cossack organizations stated they would join forces with other ethnic-Russian organizations to thwart the draining of the ethnic-Russian population from the North Caucasus (https://www.apn.ru/publications/article31077.htm). “Gathering the... MORE

On February 25, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) chairman and acting head of state, Oleksandr Turchynov, appointed Oleh Makhnitsky as acting general prosecutor, with instructions to “rebuff separatist tendencies” in parts of south-eastern Ukraine and Crimea. According to Turchynov as he introduced the appointment, separatists... MORE

Ukraine has embarked on regime transition. The interim leadership now confronts an entirely new mix of challenges to national and civil security, of greater complexity and intensity than anything in the country’s experience since 1991. Thousands of participants in the recent protest movement are still... MORE