The Jamestown Foundation notes that Defense Ministry tanks, under the command of the FSB, fired on Beslan School number one, as the school was being stormed. The revelation was made during the trial of Nurpashi Kulaev...

Laurence Jarvik links to a couple of reports that Russia should buy Alaska to solve America’s finacial difficulties. I read the original Washington Post column by Steven Pealstein that proposed selling Alaska as a...

Over at Blogrel, Katy has sparked a debate about whether Nagorno Karabagh is really a state or not: Why do I ask? Well, if NK doesn’t become part of Armenia and ends up being independent, it will act as a solo state...

Charlie Ganske at Russia Blog has a thoughtful post about whether Russia should focus its energies on maintaining a nuclear arsenal, or on preventing the breakup of the Motherland. Today’s Washington Times...

Sometimes it seems as if terrorism in Russia is a phenomenon of the North Caucasus. But Moscow has been hit almost as hard over the last five years: Moscow�s police chief Col. Gen. Vladimir Pronin has said that 354...

Following his sentencing, ex-Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been sent to a jail in Siberia – YaG-14/10 to be precise, which is near Chita. His co-defendant, Platon Lebedev has been sent to a prison in the...

Pavel Felgenhauer’s regular Defense Dossier column wasn’t published in the Moscow Times this week. By the looks of things, his views on the Nalchik raid were considered unacceptable to the editor, who...

Mosnews reports that an exciting low speed sea chase is underway in the Barents Sea, where the Norwegian Coast Guard is trying to reel in a fugitive Russian trawler. The trawler, accused of fishing illegally, also...

For China and India to become involved in a joint military exercise with Russia is a pretty far-fetched idea at the moment, I’d say,, but Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, in India to observe a joint Russian...