Perhaps the biggest political event of the fortnight did not involve President Vladimir Putin, at least directly. It was Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, who was suddenly back in the spotlight, thanks to the publication of "A Presidential Marathon," the latest installment of his memoirs, which... MORE

Two notable absentees at both the Yeltsin and Putin events were Media-Most chief Vladimir Gusinsky and his long-time rival, Boris Berezovsky. Both men are discussed in Yeltsin's memoirs: the former president says he disliked Berezovsky but valued his brains, and that he viewed Gusinsky as... MORE

Embarrassment, confusion and more than a little pique has characterized Moscow's reaction over the past fortnight to the fact that Russia was not represented at the emergency Middle East summit conference which took place in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh on October 16-17. In... MORE

Moscow's embarrassing exclusion from the Middle East summit came on the heels of what appeared to be another diplomatic setback for the Kremlin: its apparent mishandling of President Slobodan Milosevic's ouster in Yugoslavia. Earlier, many in Moscow had assessed the political standoff there as a... MORE

Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 16 in Sochi, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma officially agreed to hand over to Moscow an as yet unspecified stake in Ukraine's gas transit system. That system of pipelines, pumping stations, and storage sites is worth US$20-25 billion... MORE

While Russia redoubles its efforts to assemble five other CIS countries into a Moscow-led military, political and economic bloc, an equivalent number of countries are distancing themselves from the Russian orbit and from the CIS itself. Those are the countries in the GUUAM group--Georgia, Ukraine,... MORE

On October 2, the Estonian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) filed an inquiry concerning the delay in the restitution to the Baltic states of their pre-war embassy buildings in Paris and Rome. The Russian government refuses to return the... MORE

On September 30, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma released Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk from his post. The president appointed Anatoly Zlenko, 62, a former minister of foreign affairs (1990-94) and ambassador to the United Nations (1994-97) and to France (from 1997 to date) as Tarasyuk's... MORE

During his just-completed visit to the United States, President Haidar Aliev of Azerbaijan took the unprecedented step of publicly criticizing some oil companies for stalling the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Turkey) main export pipeline project (MEP). Aliev specifically named ExxonMobil and alluded to BP Amoco as the companies... MORE

meanwhile, exports its early oil through the Baku-Supsa (Georgia) pipeline which it owns and operates. But that pipeline can accommodate only a fraction of the future oil output from Azerbaijan. Any expansion of that pipeline would be pointless because, first, it terminates on the Black... MORE