The press and government officials in Moscow are applauding the seemingly imminent and total defeat of Syrian opposition fighters in eastern Aleppo. Forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, together with Iranian-led and financed Shia militias from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Lebanese Hezbollah, have... MORE

  At a time when Islamic State (IS) is losing ground in Syria and Iraq, its Sinai franchise dealt a blow to the Egyptian armed forces stationed in Sinai. On October 14, the group attacked an army checkpoint in restive North Sinai, killing 12 soldiers... MORE

Several Arabic news agencies reported, on November 21, that Chechnya’s ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, had apologized to the Saudis for condemning Salafism. News sources said that Kadyrov planned to visit Saudi Arabia to hold talks with government officials. In clarifying his earlier critical remarks, the Chechen... MORE

The Russian government killed or expelled nearly the entire Circassian nation from the North Caucasus in 1864, after this group resisted the Russian Empire’s advance there for more than a century. To this day, the Circassians remember this as their “genocide.” Now, the Russian government... MORE

Saudi Arabia and its allies are engaged in an unwinnable war in Yemen. The Saudi-led campaign called “Operation Decisive Storm” began in March 2015 with the aim of forcing Yemen’s Houthi rebels to withdraw from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and reinstalling Yemen’s internationally recognized... MORE

Long-simmering tensions between Jund al-Aqsa, Ahrar al-Sham and several smaller rebel groups erupted into outright fighting across Syria’s Hama and Idlib provinces at the beginning of October, culminating in the death of a revered Ahrar al-Sham commander known as al-Dabous. An ensuing truce, mediated by... MORE

The news of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton conceding the race to Donald Trump was met with spontaneous applause by the Kremlin-controlled State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) during a plenary session. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Kremlin-linked flamboyant nationalist politician and leader of the... MORE

The Kremlin’s growing geopolitical ambitions have once again undermined previous successes of Russian military reform. In particular, the Defense Committee of the State Duma (parliament) recently approved amendments to the law “On Military Duty and Military Service.” The amendments, originally proposed by the Ministry of... MORE

The following political landscape piece is a part of Eurasia Daily Monitor’s special quarterly series of strategic assessments of developments across Eurasia. These pieces examine recent important developments and trends in the region, particularly since this past summer, and anticipate where those trend lines may... MORE