On February 5, it came to light that Magomed Gamzatov, the outspoken leader of the Didoi (aka Tsez) minority in Dagestan, died under suspicious circumstances. The Didoi people and Gamzatov made headlines in Russia in December 2010, when they requested protection from the Georgian government... MORE

Nikolai Gogol’s satire “Nos” (The Nose) based on a St. Petersburg official’s nose separating from its owner and assuming an adventurous life of its own, fits the seemingly inexplicable shifts and twists in the current effort to reform Russia’s conventional armed forces. It seems that... MORE

The return of Muqtada al-Sadr to Iraq after more than three years of self-imposed exile and his unexpected January 21 departure for Iran only two weeks later have provoked speculation over the security implications of his activities in Iraq and his precise relations with Iran... MORE

Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city and its commercial capital, is yet again in the throes of violence. With Karachi generating 68% of the government’s revenue and 25% of the country’s gross domestic product, the implications for Pakistan are serious. The first three weeks of 2011... MORE

Insurgency-related violence –and, apparently, simple criminal violence– continued in the North Caucasus this week, particularly in the republics Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan.In Kabardino-Balkaria, four gunmen charged into a café in the town of Chegem on February 2 and shot a group of traffic policemen who were... MORE

Amid reports by the Russian government that militant activity in Kabardino-Balkaria has increased four to five times (www.rosbalt.ru/2010/11/29/794929.html) –more than anywhere else in the North Caucasus region– local authorities are trying to belittle the role of rebel fighters against the backdrop of economic plans for... MORE

A $550 million contract for Kyiv to deliver 420 BTR-4 armored personnel carriers and six An-32 light military transport planes to Iraq, which was concluded in 2009, faces a crisis. Ukrspecexport, the Ukrainian state-controlled arms exporter, hoped that the first BTR-4’s shipped under the contract... MORE

This week a special meeting chaired by President, Dmitry Medvedev, with Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and the entire top Russian leadership in attendance made a final decision to enact a massive military pay increase beginning in January 2012. Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, announced “a lieutenant... MORE

On January 26, the Russian government gave a presentation of the North Caucasus ski resorts project at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was aimed at attracting much needed foreign investment to the enterprise, which the government hopes will solve this volatile region’s... MORE

According to Russia’s decade-long military procurement plan the Navy will receive 4.7 trillion rubles ($159 billion) of the total 20 trillion rubles ($678 billion), a figure that Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin considers as being scary (Vedomosti, December 14, 2010). Of course, this builds upon existing... MORE