Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
KREMLIN MOVES TO REPAIR DAMAGED INTERNATIONAL IMAGE
Russian officials have strongly endorsed efforts to improve the country's tarnished international reputation. On February 21, Oleg Morozov, first deputy speaker of the State Duma, declared, "A negative image of Russia entails a lack of confidence in us, in our political system, in our economy,... MORE
AKHMETOV TIES MILITARY REFORM TO PARTNERSHIP WITH RUSSIA
Kazakhstan plans to cooperate more closely with Russia’s defense industries in order to modernize its own armed forces by 2015. The timing of this announcement enabled Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense to counter negative publicity surrounding the crash of a MiG-31 on February 16, which resulted... MORE
SECESSIONIST LEADERS COORDINATE ACTIVITIES IN MOSCOW
Between February 16 and 21, the “presidents” of South Ossetia and Transnistria and the “foreign ministers” of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria paid overlapping visits to Moscow for talks with Russian government officials and in the State Duma. The three “foreign ministers” also conferred among... MORE
UKRAINIAN-RUSSIAN STEEL MERGER ENTAILS TOP-LEVEL POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS
The Industrial Union of Donbas (IUD), Ukraine’s second-largest steel-making group, is negotiating a merger with the Russian Metalloinvest group controlled by Alisher Usmanov, who also heads Gazprom’s investment arm for assets other than gas, Gazprominvestholding. An IUD-Metalloinvest merger could generate far-reaching political and business repercussions... MORE
WITH KULOV GONE, BAKIYEV DUMPS HIPC INITIATIVE
On February 20 the Kyrgyz government unanimously rejected participation in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, founded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1996. This decision followed almost a year of negotiations between the Kyrgyz government and the international community.... MORE
UZBEK GAS OUTPUT, EXPORT SET TO GROW UNDER RUSSIAN MONOPOLY CONTROL
On February 19, Gazprom’s subsidiary office in Tashkent announced that Uzbekistan will deliver 13 billion cubic meters of gas to Russia in 2007, up from 9 billion cubic meters in 2006. Russia is the sole export destination for Uzbek gas. Under the contract for 2007,... MORE
ETHNIC, SECURITY TENSIONS BUILDING IN MAKHACHKALA
On February 10, rebels attacked a group of Russian soldiers in the city of Buinaksk. The problem is a long-standing one. For nearly a decade, the republic has been a battleground for the pro-Russian authorities and Islamic insurgents supported by rebels from neighboring Chechnya. "Unfortunately,... MORE
YULIA TYMOSHENKO TO VISIT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK
Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the eponymous political bloc and head of the Ukrainian opposition, arrives in the United States on Sunday, February 25, for a six-day visit that will take her to New York and Washington. It is her first visit to the U.S. as... MORE
RUSSIA SERIOUS ABOUT INF TREATY ABROGATION
The Russian military always disliked the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The INF eliminated all U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles (some 2,700 all in all) with a range from 500 to 5500 kilometers. The Russian... MORE
UKRAINIAN GAS DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS EYED FOR SWAPS WITH GAZPROM
Since the law initiated by opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and adopted by parliament on February 6 has banned any form of alienating gas transit pipelines and other Naftohaz Ukraine-owned assets (see EDM, February 7), Russia’s Gazprom and officials in Kyiv seem to be adjusting their... MORE