With the Olympics in Sochi scheduled to start on February 7, 2014, the situation in the North Caucasus is not improving as quickly as the authorities in the Kremlin would like (https://www.sochi2014.com/). The steps the Russian government has taken so far appear to be insufficient... MORE

Police in Kabardino-Balkaria conducted operations against the armed resistance and took preventive measures to foil terrorist attacks in the republic throughout the month of September (https://kabardino-balkaria.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/172027/).At the start of October, a young man was killed in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Baksan district. According to police, he was driving... MORE

On September 25, Dagestani Supreme Court Judge Mukhtar Shapiev was killed in Makhachkala. Two assailants shot the judge and his son near the entrance to their apartment block in the republican capital. Shapiev only oversaw civil cases, so he did not have the government protection... MORE

On September 20, the first deputy director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Sergei Smirnov estimated that 300-400 Russian citizens are participating in the conflict in Syria. “They will come back and that, naturally, is posing a serious danger,” the Russian security official said in... MORE

Militants carried out two significant attacks in Chechnya and Ingushetia on September 16 and 17. The attacks took place in the districts that are adjacent to each other and have the same name—Sunzha. In the past, there was a single Sunzha district in Checheno-Ingushetia, but... MORE

Following Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem’s September 9 visit to Moscow at the invitation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (https://kommersant.ru/doc/2275019), the issue of the involvement of Chechens in the Syrian war once again came to the fore.At a press conference, Muallem insisted that his... MORE

While opposition candidates are allowed to run for office in Russian cities like Moscow and Yekaterinburg—and, in the case of the mayoral race in the latter, possibly even win—the situation in the North Caucasus remains quite different. Indeed, opposition candidates are completely excluded from running... MORE

In a study of the evolution of the Dagestani insurgency, Dagestani social scholar Zaid Abdulagatov explores the changing social landscape among young Dagestanis in relation to Islam and the state. Among the surprising findings of Abdulagatov, who based the study on extensive polling he conducted,... MORE

On the morning of August 27, the secretary of Ingushetia’s Security Council, Akhmed Kotiev, was killed when unidentified attackers fired shots at his car in the vicinity of the town Nizhnie Achaluki as he was on his way to his office (https://www.infox.ru/accident/crime/2013/08/27/Ubit_syekryetar_Sovb.phtml). His driver was... MORE

On August 18, Kumyks clashed with Laks in the Dagestani town of Karaman. An estimated 700 police officers were deployed to separate the warring factions. Fifteen civilians and four police officers were reportedly injured in the clashes and the highway connecting Makhachkala to the northern... MORE