February 21, 2011

The year 2011 has commenced with unprecedented levels of political turmoil, violence and tension in the Middle East. While this will not necessarily come as a surprise to readers of our previous research on the region, the fact that the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents have been dismissed from power barely within weeks of one another as a result of wide-scale street demonstrations in these two countries, clearly implies that the region has once again entered into a “game breaking” situation. As violence and further protests continue to spread rapidly across the region, the key question of concern to governments, investors and Middle Eastern ruling elites is now which regime is likely to fall next ? Despite the often overlooked heterogeneities of the region, the dramatic events already having taken place in Tunisia and Egypt in the first weeks of 2010 have inspired a domino effect of protests. Demonstrations of varying degree of magnitude are presently engulfing Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Iran. They have also taken place in Jordan, while smaller scale demonstrations were planned in Kuwait. While other states across the Middle East are reporting less protest activity, the threat that the Egyptian-Tunisian contagion is posing to the region as a whole cannot not be underestimated. READ MORE

The Gorhenin Institute held a round table discussion - Prospects for Ukrainian Business in Russia - on 8 February. Experts and businessmen discussed the most promising areas of cooperation for Russian and Ukrainian business.
President of UPEC Industrial Group Anatoliy Girshfeld considers that Ukrainian business has prospects in Russia in the knowledge-based industry sector while operations in raw material sectors may hampered with strong government regulation. ‘The government actively regulates the raw materials and associated industry sectors and it won’t loose it’s hands on it. This is the main source of the budget income’, - O.Girshfeld said. ‘The state of the knowledge-based industry is a common problem to the entire post-Soviet space. That is why Russia has to allow entering its markets the companies developing in the knowledge-based industry, even in strategic sectors,’ – A.Girshfeld said. READ MORE

EGF Editorial

Is there any logic behind suggestions aired by senior decision makers, both past and present, that Russia could one day become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)? At first glance, Russian membership to NATO may seem as a suggestion bordering on the absurd, given the history of relations between East (Russia/the Soviet Union) and West (the Euro-Atlantic bloc), as well as the fact that “Cold War warriors” are still in positions of power and influence on both sides of the former-Iron Curtain. That being said, the prospect of Moscow joining the NATO alliance has been implied publically by former-Russian presidents, Boris Yeltsin in 1991, Vladimir Putin in 2000, and by former-NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, at a high level political conference in the Russian city of Yaroslavl just last September. READ MORE

ISSUE #0
01/31/2011

Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of the Czech Republic sees impossible the extradition of the former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Bohdan Danylyshyn. On January 21st, 2011, Czech authorities submitted a petition to the Prague City Court asking not to allow the extradition of B.Danylyshyn from the Czech Republic to Ukraine due to his getting a political asylum in the Czech Republic. READ MORE

The Gorshenin Institute has asked experts about the key positive and negative aspects of the resolution on Ukraine adopted by the European Parliament. READ MORE

ISSUE #21
12/03/2010

On November 26th, 2010 in Moscow after the Ukrainian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission President of Ukraine announced that he did not rule out Ukraine entering the Customs Union (CU) with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. He added that, in order to achieve that goal certain amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine should be made, which according to him could be done either in the Parliament or by a National referendum. Earlier, in April, Viktor Yanukovych has expressed an opposite opinion regarding this matter. 'Ukraine has made a choice in favor of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). Ukraine is already integrated in the WTO and today Ukraine entering the Customs Union would be impossible', -he said. th As a reminder, on November 25 European Parliament adopted a resolution on Ukraine. In this document European legislators are calling on Ukraine to make all effort to finish negotiation on an agreement as to the Association Treaty between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine in the first half of 2011. READ MORE

Dr. Marat Terterov, EGF Principal Director, gave a lecture at Gubkin Oil and Gas University, Moscow, on November 19, 2010 on the topic “Energy and Geopolitics in Eurasia: why has energy become a factor of tension rather than a factor of cooperation ?” Please click here to read the key messages of the lecture.

Mikhail Roshchin
Expert on Radical Islam in the Russian North Caucasus

The Attack on the Chechen parliament in Grozny: Jihad becomes a significant element of everyday life in the Russian North Caucasus

On the morning of 19 October 2010, Chechen Jihadists attacked the parliament building in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic, in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. Six people were killed, including two police officers, one parliament employee and three Jihadists. The attack took place as Russian Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliev, was visiting Chechnya. Also at the time of the attack, the chairman of the Chechen parliament, Dukwaha Abdurahmanov, was in discussions with a visiting delegation from the Legislative Assembly of Sverdlovsk Region (in Central Russia). The fact that the attack was timed with the presence of the Russian Interior Minister in Grozny, strongly suggests that the rebels are supported by persons from within the Chechen government structures. It is thus highly likely that the attack was planned carefully and planned from the inside. According to Igor Danilov, a member of the Sverdlovsk delegation, the gun battle between jihadists and the Chechen security forces lasted as long as one hour.

Furthermore, a number of experts on the region have suggested that the attack was orchestrated under the leadership of Hussein Gakaev, a Chechen field commander who opposes the position of Chechen Jihadist leader, Dokka Umarov, as Emir of the self-proclaimed Caucasus Emirate. Gakaev, in his position of refusing to recognize Umarov’s authority, is himself supported by two other leading field commanders of the Chechen Jihad (one Chechen, Aslambek Vadalov, the other Arab). It is worth recalling that on 29 August of this year, Hussein Gakaev and his followers organized an attack on the childhood home of the current president of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov: the village of Tsentoroi. Taking into account these two attacks, which were seemingly perpetrated by Gakaev and his followers, we can deduce that genuine political instability continues to prevail in Chechnya at present, as well as in the wider-North Caucasus region of Russia as a whole. These unsavory incidents, and particularly yesterday’s brazen attack on the Chechen parliament, provide further evidence that Jihad has become a significant element of everyday life in this unruly region of the Russian Federation.

Click here to read Mikhail Roshchin’s recent article on The Caucasus Emirate and the Movement of the Military Jamaats