Free Republic

The political and military environment in Kazakhstan is deteriorating due to the efforts of pro-Russian activists. The activities of pro-Russian movements in Kazakhstan indicate a tremendous growth of the threat to the acting authority, which emerged in the last 18 months. Currently, Kazakhstan is ready for the repeat of the “Crimean scenario”. It could be triggered by domestic problems in the Russian Federation or a sudden change in the state regime of Kazakhstan. Such threats to Kazakhastan are driven both by its citizens, who are coming home having obtained combat experience in Donbas region, and the increased activities of Cossack...

While researching material for a historical novel about a Cossack family of the Ukraine and Crimea, I found a remarkable amount of provocative and fascinating material. For instance, the Ukraine and Crimea has been both a fulcrum point and thoroughfare throughout history, but one of the most intriguing aspects of this region is that the cossacks embraced freedom, while the rest of the world was locked in slavery and imperialism. Their idea of freedom was similar to the feeling of galloping a horse over the seemingly endless steppe; they were often illiterate and their concept of freedom might be considered...

This is the story about the forced deportation of hundred of thousands of Cossacks from Western Europe (and according to some witnesses even from the US) to face execution squads and death in extermination camps in Stalin's USSR.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of volunteer fighters from Russia were mobilising to enter the war in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia last night. Units of armed Cossacks from across the North Caucasus region which borders Georgia were poised to join the battle for the separatists' capital, Tskhinvali. In North Ossetia, the region of Russia which shares cultural links and a border with South Ossetia, lists of men willing to fight against Georgian forces were drawn up. Vitaly Khubayev, 35, from the capital, Vladikavkaz, told the Guardian: "There are already two busloads of fighters leaving for Tskhinvali every day. They give...

COSSACKS WAGING HISTORICAL BATTLE; Two aging and dwindling enclaves fight over fate of priceless relics They were Cossacks. For more than half a century, almost nobody paid attention to New Kuban, a refuge for a people with nowhere else to go. Following World War II, some 300 displaced Cossacks - targeted for extinction by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin - created the 814-acre village in western Atlantic County. There, they laid low and remembered what was. They became guardians of precious artifacts sent from other Cossacks-in-hiding from as far as Australia and China. They preserved the past. Now Russia wants it...

As a wave of terror attacks sweeps the country, Russia's warrior caste, the Cossacks, are reviving their role as guardians of the south, reports Tom Parfitt in Moscow Eyes ablaze, Oleg Tishenko runs a finger down the pitted blade of a 19th-century sabre. "We are ready to fulfil our historic duty," he says, making a slash through the air. "We have never been afraid of anyone. It is genetically impossible for a Cossack to experience fear. We must protect the borders of the motherland." Here on Russia's fringe in the Caucasus, a rebirth is taking place. Under threat from Chechen...