Staunton, April 6 — Tajikistan is being pressured to shut down the Islamic Rebirth Party, something that will drive its members into the underground and make the Islamist threat there greater; and Dagestani leaders want to adopt an earlier Tajik policy and call home those from that republic now studying in Muslim schools abroad, something […]
Staunton, March 31 — “At the stroke of midnight” today, Denis Krivosheyev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, says, “all but one Crimean Tatar language media outlets, which have come under a sustained assault since the Russian annexation, will fall silent.” Despite the efforts all of them have made to register, the […]
Staunton, March 12 — Because of widespread poverty, brittle authoritarian regimes, and the impact of developments in neighboring Afghanistan, the Central Asian countries have long been a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists. But now there is a new component in this mix: the abandoned families of those who have gone to Russia to work. Students […]
Staunton, March 5 – The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, to suggest that old rules and old expectations no longer apply and thereby increase uncertainty and fear. That explains why someone like Kseniya Sobchak has suggested that she is next on Putin’s list now that the Kremlin has killed Boris Nemtsov and why an […]
Staunton, February 16 – By his bombast and aggression, Vladimir Putin has destroyed “what was even a year ago called the post-Soviet space, an area which even then existed largely by inertia as an appendage of Russian ambitions” rather than as an expression of the desires of the countries included within that designation, according to […]
Staunton, February 4 – Many in the West fear that providing military assistance to Ukraine would open the way for disasters ranging from the potential loss of an American helicopter as happened in Somalia to a possible nuclear exchange between Russia and the West as Vladimir Putin has threatened. But such arguments, as emotionally compelling […]
Staunton, February 2 — The Kremlin’s calls for a ceasefire and calls by the pro-Russian militants in the Donbass for a mass mobilization are all designed to distract attention from Moscow’s preparations for a massive invasion of Ukraine sometime in the coming days, according to Russian military analyst Aleksandr Golts. And that conclusion is strengthened, […]
Staunton, January 27 – Russia’s attraction of labor migrants from the former Soviet republics in recent years was “the main and most reliable integration instrument” Moscow had over that space, but now, thanks to the collapse of the economy and harsh restrictions on immigration, Russia has lost both migrants and that source of attraction as […]
Staunton, January 12 – Both the tsarist and Soviet armies had at various points units consisting of Muslim soldiers, and these units fought well. But if Moscow allows Central Asians to serve in the Russian army and even forms “Muslim battalions,” it is far from clear whether these units would be willing to fight for […]
Staunton, December 13 – Russians have been long accustomed to thinking that the North Caucasus is the main source of a terrorist threat to their country, but the situation has changed, Yevgeny Satanovsky says, and today, Russia faces a far greater terrorist threat from Central Asian migrants who have been penetrated and organized by Saudi […]
