“The Middle East remains one of the zones of high tension and instability in the contemporary world. We should, however, admit that 2019 was marked by an important event in the sphere of non-proliferation of WMD - the November UN Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction - which can be described as generally successful, at least much more successful than anticipated,” - write Vladimir Orlov and Natalia Artemenkova in their article «A WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East: The Road Toward It as Seen From Moscow», which was published in “International Affairs” in English.

This paper is devoted to analyzing external sources of financial support of terrorism in the North Caucasus – a region of the Russian Federation notorious for the military crackdown on the Chechen insurgency in the 1990s and the continuous terrorist activity which has led to hundreds of attacks against civilian and military targets throughout Russia. The author brings together scant pieces of information on the topic to present a study that could contribute to designing better law-enforcement and security practices intended to disrupt the financing of terrorism in Russia from abroad. This research is based on open sources and may serve as a framework for further investigation with the use of classified data by specialized agencies.

“Joe Biden has already begun forming a “shadow National Security Council”, which includes several dozen working groups. According to media reports, the leading roles in this structure are played by Biden's most trusted advisers: former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is tipped for the position of Secretary of State or National Security Advisor; Jake Sullivan, ex- Director of Policy Planning in the State Department; Avril Haynes, ex-Deputy Director of the CIA; Michele Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Staffing base of the "shadow NSС" is the analytical centers of the democratic administration, the most prominent among which are the Center for New American Security and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, founded by Biden himself" – this is the leitmotiv of the 525th issue of Yaderny Kontrol.