The mysterious killings of six people in Stavropol region on January 8 came as a complete surprise to the region’s law enforcement agencies and residents. Three cars whose drivers had been shot dead were discovered in the region (https://ria.ru/incidents/20140108/988253190.html). The first car was found near... MORE

In the wake of the late-December 2013 double bombings in Volgograd (see EDM, January 6), the attention of most analysts has rightly been on the threat posed to the Sochi Winter Olympics by the Caucasus Emirate and its leader Doku Umarov’s pledge to disrupt the... MORE

Following the meeting of the Russian Ministry of Defense collegium in Moscow on December 10, 2013, the defense minister, Army-General Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the General Staff, Army-General Valery Gerasimov, instructed the top brass on the priorities facing the military. In their addresses... MORE

On January 8, Russian authorities introduced a counter-terrorist operation regime in two southern districts of the Stavropol region. The move was in response to earlier incidents, in which police found four cars with five slain people in them (https://ria.ru/defense_safety/20140108/988277304.html). The number of people found murdered... MORE

The pre-planned introduction of an extra-tough security regime around Sochi last Tuesday (January 7) has brought an escalation of concerns about safety at the 22nd Winter Olympic Games, which will open in this sub-tropical resort on February 7. While Russian mainstream media sticks to the... MORE

The last week of 2013 was dominated by the news about three terrorist attacks—one in Pyatigorsk and two in Volgograd. These attacks overshadowed the tense situation in the North Caucasus itself.The last week of the year was the same as many previous ones and apparently... MORE

The Sino-American security tensions of recent years, including over WMD issues, has tended to overshadow the substantial if quiet cooperation between China and the United States in countering horizontal WMD proliferation to aspiring nuclear weapons states, preventing terrorists from gaining access to WMD material, and... MORE

The previous year, which ended so tragically for Russia with terrorist attacks in Pyatigorsk and Volgograd, was not an exceptional one for a country that has been mired in terrorism-related violence since the start of the second Russian-Chechen war in the fall of 1999.The terrorist... MORE

Two terrorist suicide bomb explosions in Volgograd (former Stalingrad)—on December 29 in the main city railroad station, and on December 30 on a packed city trolleybus—killed 34 people and injured more than 60. Russian officials believe the attacks were perpetrated by North Caucasian–based Salafi jihadist... MORE

Russian officials have repeatedly complained over the last 12 months that analysts in both Russia and the West will link, appropriately or not, everything that takes place in Russia before February 2014 with the Sochi Olympiad. There may be some justification for such complaints regarding... MORE