![]() RFE/RL Caucasus Report 9/3/2010 6:17:07 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the countries of the South Caucasus and Russia's North Caucasus region. For more stories on the Caucasus, please visit and bookmark our Caucasus page . |
![]() The de facto prime minister of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia says the return of Georgian refugees to Abkhazia is not possible in the current political circumstances. More ![]() Yerevan city authorities have banned the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) from holding a rally in a main square but will allow it to take place at another location. More ![]() Richard Giragosian argues that a new agreement may deal a further blow to Armenian sovereignty by deploying additional Russian border guards to Armenia's other borders, with Iran and Georgia, if not Azerbaijan. More ![]() We blogged yesterday about the unfurling of a huge new flag in Azerbaijan, which sits atop the world's tallest unsupported flagpole. More ![]() Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh today marked the 19th anniversary of the disputed enclave's de facto secession from Azerbaijan and pledged Baku will never resume control of their territory. More ![]() No less a figure than Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has arrived in Tskhinvali in connection with the ongoing investigation into the embezzlement of funds Moscow provided for postconflict reconstruction in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia in the wake of the Russian-Georgian war. More Azerbaijan Unfurls Huge National Flag With much pomp, the Azerbaijani government has unfurled a huge new flag, one of the largest in the world. More ![]() Moscow has sought to regain influence in the strategically important South Caucasus, and observers say Dmitry Medvedev's trip to Azerbaijan may lend insight into the Kremlin's long-term goals in the region. More ![]() Self-styled leader of the Caucasus emirate Doku Umarov has named a commander from southern Daghestan to succeed Magomedali Vagabov (aka Seyfullakh Gubdensky) as emir of the Daghestan front. Vagabov had occupied that post for only five weeks before being killed in a counterterrorism operation in the village of Gunib in central Daghestan. More ![]() Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry has announced that three Armenian and two Azerbaijani soldiers have been killed in clashes near the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. More ![]() The Georgian authorities appear determined to enact as swiftly as possible constitutional amendments that many opposition politicians are convinced are designed to prolong Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's hold on power after his second term expires in January 2013. More ![]() In order even to begin thinking about possible solutions, one must first imagine a Russia that is capable of genuinely recognizing Georgia's right to choose its own government and its own political course. But no such Russia is anywhere in sight. More ![]() A decade after Russia launched the second war in Chechnya, supposedly to bring order to a lawless region, Chechens are still being abducted, tortured, and killed -- this time mostly by the Kremlin-installed authorities who are firmly in charge. Kheda Saratova is one of the handful of human rights activists left who continue to risk their lives in Chechnya. More ![]() As the world marks the International Day of the Disappeared on August 30, Georgia's tiny Tsalenjikha District, along the Abkhaz-Georgian administrative border, remains fraught with anxiety over the fate of its missing persons. More ![]() Precisely what happened during the fighting early on August 29 in Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov's home village of Tsentoroi remains unclear. But the version promulgated by insurgency websites is far more credible than the contradictory accounts Kadyrov himself has given. More ![]() Having created a "management vertical" and having destroyed all vestiges of federalism and the first sprouts of local self-government, the Kremlin nonetheless must hang on to the old banner of the Russian "Federation." More |