The Russian government’s requirement that human rights organizations receiving financial assistance from abroad register as foreign agents and the unwillingness of Russian businessmen to cross the Kremlin by making up the shortfalls is hurting human rights groups across the country. But in the North Caucasus,... MORE

On January 24, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland welcomed the Russian government’s decision to allow the publication of a report on the North Caucasus by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).... MORE

The Russian Orthodox Church has reformed its organizational structures in the North Caucasus twice in the last few years alone. Thus, on March 22, 2011, Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia became part of the previously created Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala diocese (www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/03/22/n_1758529.shtml). Chechnya and Dagestan were thereby... MORE

News agencies reported on January 10 that the European Union had earmarked 2.1 million euros ($2.8 million) for Kyrgyzstan to administer and rehabilitate the country’s former uranium-producing site in Min-Kush in central Naryn province as well as the uranium tailings (waste by-products of uranium mining)... MORE

The start of 2013 was marked by a rapid deterioration of the security situation in Dagestan. The course of events in Dagestan in 2012 showed that the republican authorities not only failed to establish control over the situation in the republic, but that signs of... MORE

Last Thursday, facing a deteriorating ethnic situation in his own krai, Stavropol Governor Valery Zerenkov said that it was time to end “the policy of minimizing” such developments or ignoring them altogether. The authorities must start to report “objectively” about them, and “on the basis... MORE

Colonel General Vladimir Chirkin, the commander of the Russian ground forces, told journalists this week of Moscow’s decision to cancel the contract with the Defense Vehicles division of the Italian corporation IVECO to buy its LMV M65 light armored vehicle. The LMV M65 was produced... MORE

In an interview with the newspaper Kommersant published on January 11, the deputy prosecutor general of Russia, Ivan Sydoruk, admitted that despite some successes in countering rebel activities in the North Caucasus, the government still faced serious challenges in the region. Sydoruk blamed the continuing... MORE

The showing of the documentary “Pseudomodern” on Belarusian State Television’s Channel One on December 16, 2012 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zzhj-z_O_sE), ignited angry responses from Brussels and defiance from the Belarusian State Television and Radio Company, which has accused the Europeans of trying to subjugate Belarus by privatizing its... MORE

On Monday, January 14, the administration of President Mikheil Saakashvili released a list of ambassadors that Georgian Foreign Affairs Minister Maia Panjikidze has requested be recalled (https://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=25641). The list of ambassadors includes heads of missions to countries considered to be the primary partners of Georgia,... MORE