The Russian authorities have been reluctant to admit that an attack in southern Dagestan on the eve of New Year was the work of Islamic State. The organization is making a bid to play a role in the North Caucasus.
The double blow of falling oil prices and a decrease in remittances from Russia is making Azerbaijan economically fragile. Azerbaijan’s leaders have not prepared the country for future shocks.
Russia’s official Muslim establishment blames the West for the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State and refuses to admit that radical Islam has a real social base, ignoring the radicalization of many ordinary Muslims in Russia and Central Asia.
Despite his harsh rhetoric, Kadyrov now takes a pragmatic view of the Islamic State’s influence on the situation in Chechnya and is committing himself to “exorcise” would-be recruits or returnees from the Middle East rather than merely destroying them.
The start of an investigation by the International Criminal Court into the August 2008 Georgia-Russia war could be embarrassing for Russia, but have graver legal consequences for Georgia.
Many people are trying to rewrite the history of the 2008 Georgia-Russia War in the light of the Ukraine crisis. The EU’s report on the war is still a useful baseline and a reminder of how different the two conflicts are.
Even as confrontation deepens between Russia and the West in other parts of the post-Soviet space, the Karabakh conflict has its own logic and still compels the geopolitical rivals to work together.
A life sentence handed down to Said Amirov, once the most powerful man in the largest republic in the North Caucasus, shows that almost no one in present-day Russia is untouchable
The Armenian protesters are motivated by socio-economic issues and the desire for social justice—not larger notions of democracy that constitute international human rights advocacy.
