Staunton, December 15 – Ramzan Kadyrov’s ouster as head of Chechnya has been rumored so often that it has become something “expected” by some, but if he goes, that is likely to entail “unpredictable consequences” for Chechnya, the North Caucasus and Moscow, according to Temur Kozayev. Many had expected Kadyrov to be ousted last spring, […]
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 story The Kremlin’s Policy-Making on Ukraine is ‘A Mess’ as well as our other features ‘Managed Spring’: How Moscow […]
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 and feature Is Putin Really Reining in Hard-Liners? Fact-Checking Gordon Hahn’s Article In The Moscow Times Chechen leader Ramzan […]
On December 4, hours before Putin was to give a defiant speech about Russia being surrounded by enemies and defeating any attempts to divide it, terrorists conducted an impeccably-timed and surprising attack in the manicured capital of the former war torn republic of Chechnya, Grozny. Despite claims from Ramzan Kadyrov—Chechnya’s social media obsessed overlord— that […]
Staunton, December 6 – The violence in Chechnya this week has led many Russian and Western commentators to suggest that the unrest there is about to spread to other parts of the North Caucasus, but such analyses are wrong: unrest throughout the region has been there all along. It has only been exacerbated in recent […]
Staunton, December 4 – The violence overnight in the Chechen capital not only underscores the fragility of peace in the North Caucasus but represents “a last warning” to Vladimir Putin that he must change course or face a future in which he will be searching for political asylum somewhere outside of Russia, according to Vladimir […]
Welcome to our new 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 and feature Is Putin Really Reining in Hard-Liners? Fact-Checking Gordon Hahn’s Article In The Moscow Times Last night […]
Staunton, October 29 – “Traditional” Islam in Russia is losing ground to its ‘non-traditional” competitor, especially among the young, but the division between the two is not insuperable and the future of Islam in the Russian Federation is likely to be “a hybrid” combining elements of each, according to Aleksey Malashenko. In an extensive article […]
Staunton, September 30 – The Russian general staff has announced that it will draft young men from Chechnya this fall for the first time in 20 years and will begin drafting that cohort from occupied Crimea and Sevastopol next spring, an indication of just how hard Moscow is having to work to compensate for demographic […]
Updated Daily. Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov joined the “Night Wolves,” a bikers’ gang that Putin has favored. Russian press and social media mined the popular social media network VKontakte for information on Russian paratroopers said to be killed or captured in Lugansk Region in Ukraine; oddly, some pictures were removed of armored vehicles and a […]
