Hardly more than a handful of experts in Moscow paid attention to the G8 summit in Camp-David last week-end, and President Vladimir Putin’s absence accentuated the impression that Russia does not really belong to this exclusive club. The seven leaders had to work hard to... MORE

The ongoing political and security crisis in Syria has provided unexpected opportunities for Syria’s Kurdish community to initiate diplomatic discussions with Russia, China and Iran in its pursuit of regional autonomy, a near impossibility under the Assad regime before the outbreak of political violence as... MORE

Georgian billionaire and aspirant to power, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has started selling some of his assets in Russia for liquidity. Some of the proceeds will probably be ploughed into Ivanishvili’s political operations in Georgia and third countries. Ivanishvili amassed his $6.4-billion worth  in Russia during the... MORE

On May 12, Ingushetia’s most well-known opposition organization Mehk-Khel published an address to the newly elected president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Ingushetia’s opposition called on Putin to dismiss the head of the region, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. The authors of the open letter cited “critical political and... MORE

A unique conjunction of external and internal circumstances suggests that Georgia’s upcoming parliamentary elections will be subjected to more (possibly far more) rigorous scrutiny, compared with elections in any of the former Soviet-ruled countries.International election observers are set to arrive in numbers unprecedented even for... MORE

On May 4, 17 Circassians from Syria arrived at the Mineralnye Vody airport, situated in the south of Stavropol region. Fourteen of the new repatriates moved to Kabardino-Balkaria and three to Adygea. About 100 repatriates from Syria have resettled in the North Caucasus after the... MORE

Instead of marking a closure for the turbulent period of ugly elections, Vladimir Putin’s presidential inauguration opened a new phase in the political crisis in Russia. The activities have centered again on Moscow where the heterogeneous opposition finds it remarkably easy to mobilize thousands of... MORE

Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan has retained control over parliament and received a massive boost to his power as a result of the past weekend’s legislative elections, which his Republican Party (HHK) won by a landslide. Official results of the May 6 vote were a serious... MORE

On May 3, Russian human rights center Memorial filed materials with the Russian Investigative Committee concerning rights abuses in the North Caucasus. The collected evidence comes from four republics: Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. On April 18, the Investigative Committee’s chief, Alexander Bastrykin, signed... MORE

In 2008, China’s central government launched its own New Deal, heavily promoting massive infrastructure development after the economic downturn. Local governments were more than happy to take up the banner. Now, they are left with shiny new plazas, towering office buildings, highways to nowhere and... MORE