The war in Ukraine, now past its third year of full-scale invasion, delivers a daily torrent of violence — missiles on civilian centers, front-line grinding, and the relentless toll of death. Yet, behind this “day-to-day litany of horrors,” an analytical consensus is hardening among legal scholars, human rights experts, and political leaders: this is not Read More

Russia’s ethnic minorities are notoriously overrepresented in the death toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, the fact that Arctic Indigenous peoples of Russia’s North are among the hardest hit is often overlooked. The disproportionate fatalities have put the very existence of many Indigenous communities in the Russian Arctic at risk. As Russia’s military leadership Read More

Buryatia is a sparsely populated region in the Far East of Russia, sharing its southern border with Mongolia. Normally away from the spotlight, Buryatia received vast media attention in the wake of the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when military units based in Buryatia played a significant role in the assault on Ukraine’s Read More

‘Each patch of these 236 hectares has heirs to them in the village; their ancestors owned these lands even before the Soviet collectivization of 1920’, a man from the Republic of Dagestan says in a video recorded outside a local mosque on a snowy February day. Read More

Energy has played a central role in shaping the political dynamics of the South Caucasus, significantly shaping its geopolitical terrain. Historically, Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon reserves and the region’s potential as a transit corridor for energy resources have attracted international interest, independent of the varied political models pursued by regional states. But there is far more to Read More