On March 9, a Russian military helicopter was hit by rebels in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkent district, in the vicinity of the village of Gubden. The helicopter’s crew managed to land the aircraft and reportedly avoided casualties. Still, the attack was just the latest indicator of the... MORE

In the first post-election week, the political landscape in Russia has remained distorted and unsettled by expectations of probable aftershocks. Vladimir Putin, who had turned his election campaign into a divisive confrontation, declared that “combat operations” were over and thanked his supporters for his victory... MORE

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev and Barack Obama will likely discuss Kazakhstan’s proposal to establish the world’s first international nuclear fuel bank when they meet at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in a few weeks. In February, Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov (Kazakhstan General Newswire, February 28)... MORE

Security forces in Dagestan launched a special operation in the village of Novosasitli in the republic’s Khasavyurt district on March 7. According to eyewitnesses, about ten military vehicles, including trucks and armored personnel carriers, entered the village and blocked all roads leading in and out... MORE

One of the weaknesses of Belarus’s geopolitical situation and indeed of its self-perception is that Belarus is a crossroads, a land in between. In many ways this cliché informs thinking about Belarus – while something of note is occurring within its borders, there is a... MORE

The North Caucasus is the only part of Russia where the authorities engage in systematic abductions – a practice that has existed since the first war in Chechnya in the mid-1990s. According to the Center for Civil Assistance to the Search for Missing Persons in... MORE

On March 4, Vladimir Putin won a crushing electoral victory and ensured a third six-year term in the Kremlin as Russia’s president. The Central Election Commission (CEC) published the final official results: Putin received 63.6 percent of the popular vote. The Communist leader, Gennadiy Zyuganov,... MORE

With growing talk of a political confederation of the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister, Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, has raised the possibility of transforming the existing Peninsula Shield Force [PSF] into a “unified Gulf army” able to... MORE

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the March 4 presidential elections in Russia, as most observers had been expecting. Despite his landslide victory with nearly 64 percent of vote, many analysts agree that Putin will no longer be able to treat the presidency as a sinecure... MORE

On February 24 on three Ukrainian television channels, President Viktor Yanukovych said, “There is a law and it should be observed, I believe. And a fight within the law is a fair fight. And whoever breaks these rules should be punished for it… This is... MORE