Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Moscow Once Again Trying to Put the Kurds in Play Against Turkey
The Kremlin is once again seeking to use the Kurds, the largest stateless national group in the world, for Moscow’s own purposes. In particular, Russia has opened a quasi-diplomatic representation office in Moscow for Syria’s Kurds. Moreover, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the outspoken leader of the fringe nationalist Liberal Democratic Party...
Munich Security Conference Debates Russia’s War in Ukraine (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. During the Munich Security Conference, the Barack Obama administration’s messages about Ukraine were inevitably affected by being paired with entreaties for Russian cooperation in Syria (see Part One in EDM, February 16). After Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken in that spirit in Munich...
Putin Orders ‘Snap Inspection’ Exercise in Southern Military District
On February 8, President Vladimir Putin ordered a “snap inspection” military exercise in the Southern Military District (MD) (see EDM, February 11). The pattern of snap inspection exercises in Russia is now well established, introduced in February 2013 by Defense Minister Army-General Sergei Shoigu in an effort to raise combat readiness in the...
Munich Security Conference Debates Russia’s War in Ukraine (Part One)
Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territories, and its continuing military operations in Ukraine’s east, receded from center stage at the Munich Security Conference on February 12–14. Instead, the calamities visited upon Europe by wars in Syria and the wider Middle East (uncontrolled mass migrations into Europe, cross-border terrorism,...
Moscow’s Confrontational Policy Turns Russia From an Ally to a Threat for Armenia
On February 8, a number of units of Russia’s Southern Military District as well as the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla were put on a high alert, and massive snap exercises followed. According to Russian officials, this and similar such snap exercises would be organized during the year, in order to ready troops for a larger...
Are Chechen Special Forces Fighting in Syria?
After the Kremlin denied having ground troops in Syria, the Russian leadership was surprised by Ramzan Kadyrov’s statement that Chechen special forces were fighting in the Middle East against the Islamic State (IS). A trailer for a program produced by the Russian federal TV channel Rossiya 1 (Russia.tv, February 7) states that “Chechen...
Ukraine Cuts Russian Gas Imports to a Minimum
Ukrainian gas consumption fell significantly last year, as GDP declined by more than 10 percent, and the output of the domestic industry in particular, which is heavily depends on natural gas, plunged by more than 13 percent. This allowed Ukraine to reduce gas imports from Russia to a minimum. Moreover, Ukraine is going to further reduce...
Russian Defense Ministry Holds More Exercises in Dagestan
Following the military exercises conducted in Dagestan last month by the snipers of the Southern Military District motorized infantry, during which troops learned speed shooting at the Dalny shooting range near the city of Buinaksk (Arms-expo.ru, January 17), a new round of military exercises was held on January 27, in the city of Kaspiisk....
Sudden Massive Snap Exercise and Mobilization of Russian Forces in Black Sea and Caspian Region Appears Aimed at Turkey
On Monday, February 8, Russia’s defense minister, Army-General Sergei Shoigu, announced that the military forces of the Southern and Central Military districts, the Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) the airborne troops (Vozdushno Desantnye Voyska—VDV), the military transport air force (Voenno Transportnaya Aviatsiya—VTA),...
Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good: The Case of Belarus
On February 1, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Sochi. The meeting was not planned in advance: Lukashenka had reportedly only called his Russian counterpart on January 28 to request this engagement. This puzzled political commentators. After all, the two heads of state met on December 15 and...
