On June 23, the Terek River flooded and destroyed part of the Georgian Military Highway (Voyenno-Gruzinskaya doroga). The highway, which connects Russia to Georgia and Armenia, was closed. The flood caused mudslides and destroyed an estimated 500–600 meters of the highway, blocking the narrow road... MORE

In mid-June, the European Union pledged to provide one million euros ($1.13 million) to finance a preliminary study on the feasibility of constructing a railway tunnel between Tallinn and Helsinki, under the Gulf of Finland (ERR, June 15). The decision has attracted widespread attention to... MORE

A key link in China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR) suffered a setback in February when Bangladesh’s Awami League (AL) government shelved plans for construction of a deep-sea port at Sonadia, south of Chittagong. Bangladesh is an important participant in China’s “One-Belt, One-Road” (OBOR) initiative. An... MORE

An epic struggle between two Russian billionaires of Dagestani origin is unfolding in Dagestan. Suleiman Kerimov and Ziyavudin Magomedov are sparring over control of Makhachkala’s commercial seaport on the Caspian Sea. On May 27, the Russian government agency for sea and river transportation appointed a... MORE

On May 21, Russian media reported that a group of young people with ties to the so-called Islamic State (IS) had been detained. According to the police, “the group consisted of four residents of Ingushetia and was established to carry out attacks on representatives of... MORE

The bout of great-power euphoria sparked by the 2014 annexation of Crimea did not last long in Russia. The Kremlin quickly realized the region’s total dependence on mainland Ukraine. Over the past 60 years, heavy capital and labor investments as well as regular water, power... MORE

Continuing drastic declines in energy prices have given new impetus to Azerbaijan’s long-running quest to diversify its economy and develop the domestic non-oil sector. In this regard, the country’s leadership has placed particular importance on the transport sector (Abc.az, April 13; Azernews, March 10). In... MORE

On February 19, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey held their fifth trilateral meeting, during which they agreed on the completion date for the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway. The BTK railroad will eventually connect the three countries (Civil Georgia, February 19).... MORE

Twenty-five years after gaining its political independence, Uzbekistan has become “railway independent,” with its residents now able to travel between one part of their Central Asian republic to another, by rail, without crossing into another country—in this case, Tajikistan. On April 15, a new 123.1-kilometer... MORE

Since an uprising unseated the pro-Russian regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, relations between Kyiv and Moscow have gone from bad to worse. Responding to a recent ban of Ukrainian imports and seeking a way to reach post-Soviet Central Asian states and... MORE