On February 22, Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise trip to North Ossetia. In Vladikavkaz, the Russian president chaired the first meeting of the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK) ever held outside of Moscow. Attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria the previous several days may have prompted Medvedev’s extraordinary... MORE

It did not take long for Libya to follow the path of its neighbors, with popular uprisings in Tunisia to the west and in Egypt to the east. The Libyan ‘uprising’ which started on February 17th, continues as of the writing of this piece. (Opposition... MORE

India’s pursuit of a stronger global role and its competition with Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan has over the past two decades pushed New Delhi towards closer engagement with Central Asia. Tajikistan has become India’s main point of entry into the region, mainly due to... MORE

On February 17, the Memorial human rights center, the only Russian civil organization that closely monitors the situation in the North Caucasus, published data on attacks against the Russian law enforcement agencies and the army in the volatile region. According to the open source analysis... MORE

Moscow’s apparently random decision to increase tensions with Tokyo over the disputed Kurile Islands provoked anxiety among international observers. Yet, the recent surge in bilateral diplomatic heat over the issue should not be regarded as unexpected or necessarily as an illustration of Moscow picking a... MORE

Insurgency-related violence was reported across the North Caucasus this past week. In Dagestan, an explosion hit a food store in the city of Kizilyurt in the early hours of February 17, injuring a security guard, who was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds to the legs. When... MORE

In a video address in April 2009 Doku Umarov announced the revival of the Riyadus-Salikhin (Kavkaz Centre, May 17, 2009) – a battalion of martyrs created by the deceased Chechen warlord Shamyl Baev which was responsible for a wave of suicide attacks starting in December... MORE

Russia seems to have found a place to deploy its two most modern French-built assault helicopter-carrying ships – in the Far East to help defend the Kurile Islands. The first Russian Mistral will be built by the end of 2013, the second by 2015 and... MORE

On February 14, a double suicide attack took place in the Dagestani village of Gubden. Two servicemen were reportedly killed and 20 others were injured in the attack. First, a female suicide bomber attacked a local police station early in the evening (RIA Novosti, February... MORE

China’s January 2011 announcement of its new J-20 stealth fighter caused consternation in the US. Indeed, the subsequent blizzard of press controversy led the Pentagon to admit that its intelligence had underestimated China’s progress and capability in building an air force. Lost in all this... MORE