August 19:
The Islamic State is targeting Russian-speaking youth via a new method,Radio Free Europe reports. The terror group has released a new app, called "Caucas," for the Android mobile phone platform. The app is said to feature information and propaganda relating to the "Wilayat Kavkaz," the Islamic State's North Caucasus branch. The app, observers say, is an effort by the group to adapt to adverse conditions within the Russian Federation. Specifically, according to Radio Free Europe, it provides IS activists and supporters in the North Caucasus with "an alternative to using social networks like VKontakte, where IS accounts are often banned and where pro-IS users often express concern that they are being monitored by Russian security services."
August 20:
Russia has adopted a new tactic as part of its "hybrid warfare" strategy: kidnapping. An Estonian citizen named Eston Kochver has been found guilty by a Russian court of illegally crossing into Russian territory and sentenced to 15 years in prison. But, writes journalist Yulia Latynina in Novaya Gazeta, Kochver's sentencing represents a miscarriage of justice - because the man, an employee of Estonia's state security service, was captured while investigating the cross-border smuggling operations of Russian criminal groups and thereafter brought to Russia.
In other words, Latynina notes,Kochver "did not intend" to cross the border with Russia at all, and was brought there against his will by Russians and detained thereafter. Thus, she writes, the man has become something akin to the Estonian version of Nadia Savchenko, the imprisoned Ukrainian pilot that has become the public face of the long-running conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.
The Georgian government is crying foul over violations of its airspace by a Russian helicopter,Interfax reports. A spokesman for Georgia's Foreign Ministry has termed the incident, which occurred an August 19th incursion from the autonomous region of South Ossetia into Georgia proper, to be "provocative in nature and posing a threat to security and stability in the region."
August 22:
Russia's February 2014 annexation of Crimea has been followed by an all-out assault on the Ukrainian language there. Writing in his Window on Eurasia blog, Russia expert Paul Goble takes note of a little-noticed trend: "the destruction of Ukrainian language schooling on the peninsula." According to local authorities, writes Goble, "there is now not a single school in Crimea where Ukrainian is the language of instruction," and "only about 17 Ukrainian classes for the entire region."
Russian officials have maintained that the elimination of the classes reflects a lack of interest among the local populace. However, notes Goble, the statistics suggest that the reduction is more the product of government pressure than local apathy, because - as per the 2001 census - roughly a quarter of the Peninsula's population "declared themselves to be ethnic Ukrainians" who would ostensibly prefer Ukrainian-language instruction if it was available.
August 23:
The Kremlin is seeking to control - and to export - the Islamic extremism within its borders, The Daily Beast observes. The newsmagazine cites a recent expose by Novaya Gazeta in reporting that Russia's security services have taken on a key role in "controlling" and directing the flow of jihadi militants seeking to join the fight against the Assad regime in Syria. The logic behind Russia's strategy, notes The Daily Beast, is compelling: "Better the terrorists go abroad and fight in Syria than blow things up in Russia."
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