Since the Mongolian parliamentary elections of June 28, 2012, won by the pro-Western Democratic Party, there has been a re-emphasis on strengthening Mongolian-Russian political and military relations as part of the new government’s efforts to counter-balance China’s monopoly over Mongolia’s economy. On November 3, 2012,... MORE

On November 7, the Circassian activist group Justice for the North Caucasus issued an emergency statement on the situation in Syria. The group called on the international community to send “relief to hundreds of men, women, children and elderly who have been under siege for... MORE

Earlier this month, a delegation from the Chinese National Defense University made an official visit to Kazakhstan, marking yet another high-profile exchange between the two countries’ defense establishments. According to Major General Yedil Urazov, the head of the military education and science department in Kazakhstan’s... MORE

The Petersburg Politics Foundation along with the Regnum news agency recently produced a joint assessment of socio-political stability in Russia’s regions, using a ten-point scale, and identified three North Caucasian republics—Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan—as being among the worst (https://slon.ru/russia/top_15_neozhidannykh_sobytiy_v_rossiyskikh_regionakh-848640). According to the president of the... MORE

Once a renowned resort republic, Kabardino-Balkaria nowadays is more often mentioned in the news not as a resort region known across Russia, but as a territory in which counter-terrorism operations are regularly conducted.Drawing on the example of the neighboring republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, authorities... MORE

In a little-noticed development last month, a senior Armenian military official has announced Armenia’s willingness to use military force against Azeri economic facilities in the event of an outbreak of war in Karabakh. On October 15, Major General Artak Davtyan, Chief of the Operative Department,... MORE

On November 6, President Vladimir Putin sacked Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (50), replacing him with Sergei Shoigu (57), who was appointed governor of the Moscow region last May after serving for more than 20 years as chief of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry (Ministerstvo po Chrezvychaynym... MORE

On October 23, a suspected suicide bomber destroyed a police checkpoint on the administrative border between Ingushetia and North Ossetia. One police officer died in the attack and several others were injured. The power of the bomb was estimated at 50 kilograms of TNT. The... MORE

At the heart of the reform of Russia’s Armed Forces, launched in October 2008, was the aim to create “permanent readiness” brigades, principally to facilitate rapid deployment and enhance combat capability and combat readiness. It is now a source of furrowed brows among the country’s... MORE