Tag: ISIL

Reports of precise numbers and accounts of tracking Islamist fighters as they leave Russia and return open up the question of how much the FSB controls these fighters, not only to gather intelligence but to perform missions.

The Russian state TV show Vesti Nedeli, a weekly program hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov has aired footage of Russian spetsnaz engaged in combat on the ground in Syria.

For the third time this year, ISIS has declared responsibility for an attack in Dagestan, Caucasian Knot, a regional news service reported. Police pursuing the murderers of the father of the former mayor of Derbent were attacked by a grenade, then shot 4 militants dead; 2 police were killed and 17 wounded in the operation.

Live Updates: In part 2 of an interview with Germany’s Bild published at Kremlin.ru, President Vladimir Putin indicates that it is “premature” to offer Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum in Russia, and says he could still win the election in 2017. The previous post in our Putin in Syria column can be found here. In […]

Staunton, December 14 – Moscow’s primary goal in Syria is not to support its ally Bashar Al-Assad against all challenges but rather to destabilize the situation in the Middle East, undercutting the influence of the West and boosting its own; and to that end, it will be quite prepared to sacrifice the Syrian dictator, according […]

Staunton, November 16 Vladimir Putin should be compared with Stalin rather than with Hitler, Avraam Shmulyevich says, not only because he is seeking to use an east-west alliance to legitimize his seizure of territory but also because Putin has played “no less a role” in the creation of ISIS than the Soviet dictator did in […]

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 […]

Reports of the murder of a dozen border guards by jihadist terrorists at the Turkmen-Afghan border this summer and the seizure of $1.5 million from jihadists in the north of the country have shone light on the much-increased threat Turkmenistan faces from international terrorism.  Critics, including one dissident ex-MP, have expressed fears this could lead […]

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 domestic policies. The previous issue is here, and see also our Russia This Week stories Ultranationalists Angry over ‘Capitulation’ of Minsk Agreement, ‘Anti-Maidan’ Launched by Nationalists, Cossacks, Veterans, Bikers, The Guild War – […]

This week on The Interpreter podcast Boston College Professor Matt Sienkiewicz and The Interpreter’s managing editor James Miller discuss Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s recent visit to the United States, and how Ukraine will (or perhaps will not) be supported by the United States and Europe. But the conversation quickly turns to ISIS and the US […]