Latest Articles about Domestic/Social

Fighting Along Chechen-Dagestani Administrative Border Heaviest in Recent Years
The start of the large-scale special operation by the police, military and Federal Security Service (FSB) forces launched in Chechnya’s Nozhai-Yurt district on February 13 sent the Russian news agencies into disarray. They reported there were three groups of militants headed by 26-year-old Arslan Mamedov... MORE

Putin Declares His Defense Agenda for the Next Decade
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, running for a third presidential term on March 4, has been publishing his election platform bit by bit as lengthy articles in different Moscow daily newspapers. This week it was the government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta that carried a 6,500-word text about defense... MORE

Erdogan Supports Intelligence Chief Fidan
A recent amendment to the law on National Intelligence Service (MIT) personnel, requiring the prime minister’s authorization for their trial, seems to have resolved a crisis among Turkey’s security and judicial apparatus for now. However, this solution also raised many more issues than it solved... MORE

Human Rights Activists Chart Continued Wide-Scale Abuses in the North Caucasus
On February 18, the first North Caucasus forum of human rights organizations took place in Ingushetia. About 100 participants from other regions of the North Caucasus and Russia took part. In one of the most revealing statements to date, the head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov,... MORE

Security Chief’s Efforts to Seal Up the Political-Legal Chairmanship
The run-up to this year’s leadership succession has brought more excitement than observers could reasonably expect when the top two presumptive leaders, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, seemed set after the 17th Party Congress in 2007. The competition between Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai and... MORE

Putin Promises Changes and Curtails Reforms
On the final stretch of the presidential campaign, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rushes from one region to another demonstrating attention to local needs and asserting his readiness to lead the country for six more years. Governors are competing in staging support rallies and the official... MORE

Moscow Tentatively Agrees to Consider Syrian Circassians’ Relocation
On February 11, over 1,000 Circassian activists gathered in Maikop, Adygea, to discuss the issue of repatriating Circassians from war-torn Syria. In a special declaration passed at the conference, the participants called on the Russian government “to take the Circassians-compatriots living in Syria under its... MORE

Yanukovych Provides a Krysha for Organized Crime
The Party of Regions has acted as an insurance agency and protection racket for former state officials accused of abuse of office by giving them parliamentary seats and immunity from prosecution. The Party of Regions has brought “together much of the political opposition to President... MORE

Latvia’s Russian Party Triggers Constitutional Referendum on State Language (Part Two)
Harmony Center, the Russian party in Latvia, has triggered a constitutional referendum on the state language (see EDM, February 15). Harmony calls for Russian to become a state language, in parallel with the Latvian language. The proposal is bound to fail in the February 18... MORE

Policemen and Rebel Leader Killed in Dagestan
Interfax reported today (February 17) that five policemen were killed and six wounded yesterday during two shootouts with militants in Dagestan’s Kazbekovsky district along the republic’s administrative border with Chechnya. A law-enforcement source told the news agency that the Russian special operation in the area... MORE