Russian regular and proxy forces have attacked Ukrainian positions at selected points along the entire length of the demarcation line in recent days. This operation threatens to shift the demarcation line and the whole existing basis of the September 2014 Minsk armistice. Russia has blocked... MORE

The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France met this week in Berlin in the so-called “Normandy format” to seek ways to scale down the recent upsurge in military violence in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas (which encompasses the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces).... MORE

The collapse of the nominal ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, marked by an escalation of military operations around Donetsk airport, has resulted in a fresh diplomatic confrontation between Moscow and Kyiv. Both sides blame each other for the increased violence, while the Kremlin claims that this... MORE

The most talked about subject in Kabardino-Balkaria so far in 2015 is the prison sentences passed handed down to the militants who participated in the insurrection in the republican capital in 2005. On October 13 of that year, groups of militants under the command of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Local ataman (historically, a Cossack leader) rule proliferates in the power vacuum of the “Luhansk People’s republic” (LPR). Russian forces seized this area from... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Outside Luhansk City and its environs, the “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) territory is splintered into de facto fiefdoms and portions of no man’s land. Each fiefdom has its own ataman (leader)... MORE

The situation in Armenia has suddenly became extremely tense after six members of the Avetisyan family, including two children, were murdered on January 12 in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, on January 12; meanwhile, the family’s six-month old baby, also wounded in the attack, is... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia is building secessionist proto-states on parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (collectively known as the Donbas region). This effort is advancing with relative ease in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) but is faltering in the “Luhansk... MORE

It was an uneasy start to 2015 in the North Caucasus. On the very first day of the year, government forces clashed with militants in Mekkensky village, located in the lowlands of northern Chechnya’s Naur district. Two militants were killed in the battle. According to... MORE

Despite a noticeable decline in the intensity of violence in the North Caucasus, Russian experts on the region are convinced the situation is set to become worse rather than improve. The Kavkazsky Uzel website estimated that 290 people died and 144 people were injured in... MORE