Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Mustafa Cemilev Denies Russian Allegations of Crimean Tatars Recruiting Fighters for the Islamic State
In recent months, a debate arose about the formation of a Muslim Battalion in Ukraine (see EDM, September 5). This was soon followed, in the Russian media, by rumors about the Crimean Tatar leadership’s alleged links with the Islamic State (IS). On October 5, 2015, the head of the State Committee of the Crimean government for International...
Cuba: Russia’s Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier
Despite all of the other major foreign policy issues on its agenda, Russia has not forgotten Cuba. Indeed, it appears that Moscow’s strategic interest in this Caribbean island country has grown steadily, despite reported stagnation in their bilateral economic ties (House.gov, October 22). Recently, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry...
Putin Wants Ukraine to Renegotiate Terms Directly With Donetsk-Luhansk
Ukraine held local elections, on October 25, throughout the country, including most of the government-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, but not in the Russian-controlled territory of those provinces. There, the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) prevented the holding of local elections under...
Moscow Still Calling on West to Join ‘Broad’ Anti-IS Coalition, but Patience Is Running Thin
The Russian military has intensified the bombing campaign in Syria to its limit. Ministry of Defense (MoD) officials told journalists that, on October 27, Russian bombers flew 71 sorties and hit 118 targets in the northwestern Syrian provinces of Idilb, Hama, Homs and Aleppo as well as Damascus in the south (Interfax, October 28). According to...
Ukraine’s Local Polls, Marred by Irregularities in Big Cities, Show East-West Split Remains
The ruling coalition won most local elections across Ukraine on October 25, according to preliminary figures. Results from the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) are expected next week, but it is already clear that compared to the 2010 local elections, the kleptocratic elites who used to support former President Viktor Yanukovych lost dominant...
Cossacks Split Between Claiming to Be an Ethnic Group or a Social Class
On October 17, Cossack groups with combat experience held a conference in the city of Mineralnye Vody in Stavropol region. According to the organizers, the conference participants were veterans of the conflicts in Chechnya, Transnistria, Tajikistan, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Karabakh, and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. These Cossacks...
Belarus Redoubles Efforts to Connect With the World
While the outcome of this past month’s presidential elections in Belarus continues to be discussed, the major news refrains have become the debate on a Russian airbase in Belarus, rapprochement with the West, the prospects for economic reform, and labor migration to and from Belarus. During an improvised briefing at a Minsk voting precinct...
Another Punished People, the Pontic Greeks, Posing New Problems for Moscow in Crimea
The Soviet government tried to force out the Pontic Greeks from the southern part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the early 1920s, and then subjected that community to three waves of deportation to Central Asia in 1937, 1942 and 1949. Now, the Russian successor state is having new problems with this community—not only in the...
Belov and the Government’s Ban of ‘the Russians’
A new milestone has passed in the trial of Alexander Belov, the outspoken former leader of the ultra-right Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) and a current member of the coordinating council for the Russian extreme nationalist opposition. The court completed its investigation, on September 8, and extended Belov’s house arrest for...
Kazakhstan Walking Tightrope Amid Russia-Ukraine Divide
At a time when relations between Russia and the West are at an all-time low because of Moscow’s meddling in Ukraine and Syria, Kazakhstan is finding it increasingly complicated to preserve the balance. In the span of a week this month (October 2015), Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev met, in Astana, with his visiting counterparts...
