Live Updates: Officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry killed a leader of a terrorist group in Dagestan today during a raid, bringing the total killed this year to 160. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and […]
Staunton, November 9 – Most observers focus on ethnic and religious issues as the drivers of protest in the North Caucasus, but in fact, North Caucasians have in addition to these concerns many other reasons to protest, some of which are typical of Russia as a whole and others regionally specific, according to Anton Chablin. […]
Staunton, November 3 – In the final decades of the Soviet Union, many in the non-Russian union republics began to ask why some of them were headed by members of their titular nationalities and others by Russians and increasingly demanded that members of the titular nation occupy key posts. Over time, Moscow backed down, first […]
Sociologist Denis Sokolov, an anthropologist and senior researcher for the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, has traveled to the Russian Caucasus and the Donbass to interview warlords to find out what factors sustain them. He finds not so much confirmation of the poverty theory of the “root causes of terrorism” but […]
Staunton, September 24 Statements by Russian officials and pro-Kremlin commentators that Salafi Islam is spreading in Russia and now threatens “traditional” Russian Islam are by themselves exacerbating tensions to the point of violence between the two — clashes Moscow may hope to exploit or to justify repression but that may cost it control of the […]
Staunton, July 30 – “The Russian special services have controlled” the flow of Islamist radicals from Russia to Syria “from the very beginning,” according to Elena Milashina of Novaya Gazeta. They haven’t interfered, and sometimes have assisted it, seeing “a threat to state security only in those who try to return from this war.” In […]
Staunton, May 27 – The leaders of the Caucasus Emirate have declared themselves part of ISIS, but such declarations, given that many Salafis in the North Caucasus view ISIS as not being an Islamic project — an attitude Russian officials need to promote and exploit — may have the effect of weakening the group there, […]
Recently Stephen Sestanovich observed that whenever Putin faces a crisis he blames America and other governments for it. The latest example of this Putin tactic of misdirection and evasion is his claim that the US and other intelligence agencies actually conspired with Islamic terrorists to detach the North Caucasus from Russia. Although this charge will […]
Staunton, April 9 – The Kavkazskaya Politika portal has launched a new series of articles that pose the question as to what “a perfect storm” might look like that would overthrow the existing political order; whether such a whirlwind is approaching; and how both regional elites and Moscow might be able to cope. The first […]
Staunton, April 14 – While Russians have been focusing on Ukraine, the situation in the North Caucasus has deteriorated in two important ways, according to Maya Astvatsaturova. On the one hand, disputes of any kind are increasingly invested with ethnic meaning. And on the other, young people are better armed and ready to use guns […]
