Vladimir Putin has never been a man of second thoughts, but these days he might reflect on his year-old decision to put Mikhail Khodorkovsky behind bars without much joy. The negative repercussions of the arrest are definitely greater than he expected in an area that... MORE

The recent Human Rights Watch report on the abuse of conscripts within the Russian army has provoked outrage in Moscow, eliciting strong denials and attempts by the authorities to downplay the scale of the problem. The U.S.-based group asserted that first-year conscripts in the Russian... MORE

Almaty, Kazakhstan's former capital city, has been drawn into the bitter debates between Kazakh nationalists and the Russian-speaking community. Recently a resident of Almaty sued the popular Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty Kazakhstan for spelling the name of the city as "Alma-Ata," ignoring the officially... MORE

Some 2,000 people gathered on Pushkin Square in central Moscow on Saturday October 23 to protest the war in Chechnya and, more broadly, the administration of President Vladimir Putin. Members of various human rights and pro-democracy groups, including For Human Rights, the Anti-war Club, and... MORE

The Russian political elite appears to be deeply divided over how to react to Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenka's efforts to rule his country indefinitely. While some policymakers in Moscow suggest Russian President Vladimir Putin should follow in Lukashenka's footsteps and scrap the constitutional two-term limit... MORE

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's call to make building a strong army a top priority may have fallen on deaf ears. Not only are the Georgian armed forces not reforming, but also there are indications that military personnel are selling their weapons. During an October 21... MORE

On October 18-22, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited, for the first time in this capacity, the five Central Asian countries. He conferred with the head of state, the defense minister, and other top officials in each of the five capitals. The visit's main... MORE

The North Caucasus republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia has been buffeted by instability this week. Over three successive days, a group of several hundred distraught relatives and friends of seven people who disappeared earlier this month and are believed to have been murdered held demonstrations in Cherkessk,... MORE

Two events -- the upcoming U.S. presidential election and Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent announcement of his controversial "reform measures" -- appear to have intensified discussions about the current state and possible evolution of Russian-American relations. One group of politicians and pundits in Moscow and... MORE

Ukrainian media have published the last opinion polls allowed by prior to election day (Ukrayinska pravda, October 15 and 18). Although the results vary among different polling organizations, some show Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko neck-and-neck. Four factors explain Yanukovych's popularity... MORE