The Russian federal agency for CIS affairs, compatriots and international humanitarian cooperation unveiled plans for holding a conference of compatriots in Beirut, Lebanon before the end of this May. The agency’s head, Konstantin Kosachyov, told members of the Russian Federation Council that the agency was... MORE

A police checkpoint in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt came under fire early today (April 20). One policeman was slightly wounded in the attack. Police fired back at the gunman but he managed to escape in a car (riandagestan.ru, April 20).Yesterday (April 19), three suspected... MORE

On April 3, in a bloody incident in Nazran, five people were killed on their way home from their jobs at a brickyard (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/204389/). The incident illuminated the authorities’ incompetence and inadequate response to the processes occurring in the republic. Government agents surrounded the car... MORE

The Belarusian political commentator Andrei Fyodorov cast light on why the fight for democracy in Belarus, which the EU and the US have been waging non-stop since 1996, has never succeeded. According to Fyodorov, “the Belarusian society itself does not reveal a willingness to fight... MORE

A court in Adygea has unexpectedly, and probably inadvertently, endorsed Circassian aspirations for a unified republic in the North Caucasus. On April 3, it was announced that the court in Maikop had ruled that the ethnic Cherkess living in Adygea were not an ethnicity separate... MORE

A recent International Crisis Group (ICG) report on tensions in Kyrgyzstan’s south has raised pointed questions about the country’s underlying stability. The ICG report, “Kyrgyzstan: Widening Ethnic Divisions in the South,” calls the current peace in Osh “superficial,” noting that “neither the Kyrgyz nor Uzbek... MORE

On April 12-13, high-profile experts close to the Russian government participated in a conference on the North Caucasus in the city of Pyatigorsk, the seat of the Moscow’s envoy to the region, Aleksandr Khloponin. A deputy to Khloponin, Yuri Oleinikov, stated that the administration had... MORE

Orthodox Easter was celebrated in Russia last Sunday with all the ceremonial pomp and official hypocrisy, but it has hardly produced any calming effect on the brewing political crisis. Ahead of his return to the Kremlin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s last official address to the... MORE

Security forces in Ingushetia launched a special operation today (April 13) in a portion of the republic’s Sunzha district where a group of militants was reportedly encircled. A group of around ten alleged militants were reportedly blockaded yesterday (April 12) in a wooded area near... MORE

The latest opinion poll from the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research (IISEPS) offers encouraging news for the Alyaksandr Lukashenka regime in Belarus, and the agency states that the “economic well-being” of Belarusians is becoming more stable. Accordingly, the personal rating of the President,... MORE