(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – June 20, 2014) The number of Russians who believe the situation in the restive North Caucasus region is stable and under control has more than doubled in the past year, a poll released Thursday has shown. The survey, conducted by independent pollster Levada Center, showed 44 percent of respondents described the overall […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – May 13, 2014) In a tacit admission that the situation in the North Caucasus differs radically from that elsewhere in the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin has made a series of personnel appointments clearly intended to strengthen Moscow’s control over developments there. Putin has dismissed Aleksandr Khloponin, whom then-President Dmitry Medvedev had appointed in January 2010 to head the new […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – February 10, 2014) The Economist’s Feb. 1 issue led with President Putin and the Winter Olympics as its cover story, saying that “the message of the Games is simple: Russia is back.” Western commentators never fail to mention that the Winter Olympics are a showcase for Putin’s modern Russia, while highlighting Sochi’s […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – February 4, 2013 – Ilya Arkhipov and Stepan Kravchenko) The Sochi Olympics, designed to trumpet the strength of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, also shines a light on its weaknesses. As skiers, hockey players and figure skaters arrive this week at the games that cost about $50 billion, the North Caucasus region remains unruly more than 14 years […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 15, 2014) For the first time since the end of the USSR, there were more births than deaths among Russian citizens during the first 11 months of 2013. While the difference was small, 23,000, compard to the number of births 1.753 million and deaths 1.730 million, many commentators were celebrating what […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 11 Issue: 2 – Paul Goble – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – January 7, 2014) Russian officials have repeatedly complained over the last 12 months that analysts in both Russia and the West will link, appropriately or not, everything that takes place in Russia before February 2014 with the Sochi Olympiad. There may be some justification […]
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(Bloomberg editorial – Bloomberg.com – January 3, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly intends next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi as a showcase for the country’s re-emergence as a global power. Given his recent diplomatic coups in Syria and Ukraine, maybe he thinks that he has plenty to show off. Yet this week’s twin suicide bombings in Volgograd, which killed […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – The head of the Muslim Board of the Caucasus, Allahshukur Pashazadeh, has extended his condolences following the deadly terrorist attacks in Russia’s southern city of Volgograd. “It is absolutely obvious that the terrorist attacks were meant to incite ethnic and religious hatred between people. Islam, as a religion of peace and creation, resolutely condemns the […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 4 (Interfax) – Russians think that the North Caucasian situation remains tense and do not expect stabilization of the situation soon, Levada Center told Interfax. Only 17% of the respondents claim that the North Caucasus is calm and prosperous, and 63% say there are tensions. Ten percent of 1,603 respondents polled in 130 towns and cities in 45 […]
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Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 0 From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net> Subject: New white papers ANNOUNCEMENT The Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation has posted the first of its white papers: Gordon M. Hahn, The Caucasus Emirate Comes to America: The Boston Marathon Bombing (Chicago, Ill.: GFC, October 2013 Gordon M. Hahn, The Caucasus Emirate Threat to the Sochi Winter Olympics (Chicago, Ill.: GFC, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – November 6, 2013) Not for the first time, the chairman of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Russian State Duma deputy speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky has incurred the wrath of North Caucasus officials by making disparaging remarks about the region. Speaking on a TV talk show late last month, Zhirinovsky advocated […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 7, 2013) President Vladimir Putin has urged Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky to show more restraint in his speeches, most likely in reference to the lawmaker’s recent remarks about the North Caucasus that provoked outrage in the region. Zhirinovsky said during a television show last month that the North Caucasus should be surrounded […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 5, 2013) The Syrian crisis, which gave Vladimir Putin a much-celebrated diplomatic victory, now threatens Russia’s territorial integrity not because Russian citizens are among the combatants in Syria but because Moscow’s mishandling of the Circassian issue in the Middle East is radicalizing the Circassian republics of the North Caucasus. Circassian activists […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 31 (Interfax) – A senior Russian Orthodox bishop has claimed that Russian speakers “often suffer ethnic and religious discrimination” in regions in Russia’s North Caucasus where they are in the minority. “We are used to thinking that it is only smaller ethnic groups that need protection. That is not true. In many of the republics (of Russia), Russians […]
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MOSCOW, October 24 (Nabi Abdullaev, RIA Novosti) – Investigators say that moments after Naida Asiyalova, a wan 30-year-old from Russia’s violence-plagued republic of Dagestan, boarded a public bus one afternoon this week in the city of Volgograd, the bomb she was carrying exploded, claiming six lives. The apparent attack serves as another reminder of the grim effectiveness of female suicide […]
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(Interfax – Novo-Ogarevo, September 9, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that it is necessary, while defending human rights and freedoms in the North Caucasus, not to ignore sweeping accusations of allegedly widespread violations of human rights in the region. “Attempts by foreign states to use the existing problems in the North Caucasus to the detriment of Russia should be […]
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(Interfax – September 7, 2013) A majority of Russians (55 per cent) are confident, to greater or lesser extent, that the authorities are able to protect the public from new terrorist attacks, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 3 September, quoting the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM). (1) This answer has become more popular over the past three years […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 8, 2013) At the present time, there are approximately 30 territorial disputes among Russia’s federal subjects, a situation that makes changing borders anywhere a such an extremely dangerous proposition that one Moscow commentator calls these conflicts “a slow acting bomb under Russian sovereignty” as a whole. Indeed, Ruslan Gorevoy argues in […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 1, 2013) The majority of Russians continue to claim that tensions exist in the North Caucasus but their number is declining, Levada Center sociologists told Interfax. Nineteen percent of 1,601 respondents polled in 130 towns and cities in 45 regions in July argued that all was quiet in the North Caucasus and two percent even said […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 11, 2013) During the Second Chechen War, witnesses described Chechnya’s Chernokozovo prison as a place where suspected Chechen rebels were tortured until their relatives paid a bribe sufficient for their release. Prisoners arriving at the facility were greeted with the phrase “Welcome to hell” and subsequently forced to undergo a series […]
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From: “Hahn, Gordon M.” <ghahn@miis.edu> Subject: Research report on the Boston Marathon attack Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 ANNOUNCEMENT A special 25-page research report on the Boston Marathon attack: ‘The Caucasus Emirate Comes to America: The Boston Marathon Attack’ will soon be available. For a copy please send an email request to gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What I have been warning […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – June 6, 2013) A foreign correspondent who has reported from five continents, Brooke, known universally as Jim, is the Voice of America bureau chief for Russia and former Soviet Union countries. From his base in Moscow, Jim roams Russia and Russia’s southern neighbors. Car bombs and shootings make Dagestan the leader in political […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 4, 2013) As the fallout from the arrest of the leader of Dagestan’s capital continued on Monday, experts agreed that the event would likely send tremors throughout all of Russia. Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov, 59, was detained Saturday with the help of special forces sent by Moscow, who blocked all of […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – May 1, 2013) Six blocks from the Caspian Sea, on Kotrova Street in central Makhachkala, sits a mosque being watched by undercover Russian agents charged with preventing acts of terror. As worshipers spill out into the streets, American investigators are watching now, too, as they try to reconstruct the events […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 30, 2013) The Boston Marathon bombings have served to corroborate many observers’ previously unsubstantiated hunch that one reason for the Russian security services’ inability to contain the North Caucasus insurgency is that the various agencies responsible fail to share information among themselves. In this particular case, Daghestan’s Center for the Struggle Against […]
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(Andranik Migranyan testimony – House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade – April 26, 2013 – http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/joint-subcommittee-hearing-islamist-extremism-chechnya-threat-us-homeland) Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Islamist Extremism in Chechnya: A Threat to the U.S. Homeland? Prepared Testimony of Andranik Migranyan Director of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, New York U.S.-Russian relations on Chechnya have a […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH – April 25, 2013) The investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing has led U.S. authorities to the North Caucasus to look for links that the Tsarnaev brothers may have had with extremists there. Experts are convinced, however, that the brothers acted alone and had no links to any […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sergei Markedonov, special to RBTH – April 24, 2013) The bombing during the Boston Marathon brought Chechnya back to the attention of the West, but the public, the press and the politicians fail to realize the situation there has changed and the threat is greater. Sergey Markedonov is a visiting research fellow […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 22, 2013) The Daghestani wing of the North Caucasus insurgency has formally denied any role in the Boston Marathon bombings. In a brief statement posted on April 21 on the website vDagestan.com, its leaders stress that their primary enemy is Russia and they “are not engaged in military hostilities with the United […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 24, 2013 – windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-daghestan-failed.html) The government of Daghestan “has been completely destroyed and must be build anew with the participation of various political forces” including the formation of new political parties, according to Ramaan Abdulatipov, who is the current acting head of that North Caucasus republic. Confessing that the situation is […]
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(Center for American Progress – Cory Welt – April 22, 2013) Cory Welt is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs –www.ieres.org. In the days following the dramatic manhunt in Boston for surviving terrorism suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 75 – Valery Dzutsev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 22, 2013) The focus of the media on the suspected Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers is fully justified, but understanding the wider context of the crime may be just as helpful (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223152/). Whatever the brothers’ personal experience was, if […]
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(opendemocacy.net – Susan Richards – April 23, 2013) Susan Richards is a non-executive director and founder of openDemocracy. She has produced a number of feature films and written a prize-winning book, Epics of Everyday Life, about the lives of ordinary Russians in the transition from communism. Lost & Found in Russia, Encounters in the Deep Heartland, which covers the period […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 3, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-moscow-must-prepare.html) Moscow has finally recognized that “the seizure of power in Syria by radical Islamic groups inevitably will lead to the growth of tensions in the North Caucasus” and the exacerbation of conflicts there because of the number of North Caucasians who are fighting with the Syrian opposition, […]
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(International Relations and Security Network (ISN) – www.isn.ethz.ch – Aglaya Snetkov for the ISN – February 25, 2013) Aglaya Snetkov is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). Despite the attempts by Western powers to penetrate the Caucasus, Russia continues to exert unmatched influence over the region. In today’s Questions and Answers presentation, the CSS’ Aglaya Snetkov […]
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MOSCOW, February 14 (RIA Novosti) – Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov said on Thursday the United States has increased geopolitical pressure on Russia in 2012. “Last year saw an escalation in geopolitical pressure on Russia on behalf of the United States and its allies, who still regard our state as a rival on the international arena,” he told […]
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(www.opendemocracy.net – Daniil Kotsyubinsky – February 4, 2013) Daniil Kotsyubinsky is Russian historian and journalist based in St. Petersburg Russian lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a law to allow governors to be appointed in the country’s 83 regions, reversing last year’s move to restore direct elections. As Daniil Kotsyubinsky reports, this issue is unimportant in itself, but it exposes […]
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(RFE/RL – Tom Balmforth – November 05, 2012) MOSCOW — Suicide bombings in police stations. Muslim clerics gunned down in broad daylight. Shoot-outs between insurgents and security forces. These have become run-of-the-mill headlines in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region of Daghestan. Last week, unidentified gunmen shot dead an imam and two of his male relatives as they drove to morning […]
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MOSCOW, October 4 (Dan Peleschuk, RIA Novosti) – A prominent human rights worker in Moscow has reported receiving anonymous threats on her cell phone. Tanya Lokshina, a senior Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said she received direct and severe threats via text messages mentioning specific details of her life, including her pregnancy. She also said the contents of the […]
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