During her visit to Estonia in early May, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga commented on Russia's official attitude toward the three Baltic states as an aspect of Russia-West relations. That linkage, demonstrating as it does the Baltic wish to be part of the Western world, apparently... MORE

On May 2, Armenian President Robert Kocharian dismissed his rivals, Prime Minister Aram Sarkisian and Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian, from their posts. Kocharian's move capped a series of maneuvers by which the embattled president managed to wrest the political initiative and gain the psychological advantage... MORE

On May 8, Kyrgyzstan announced that a court in the city of Osh had just sentenced five men to various terms of imprisonment for "terrorism" and conspiracy to create a state of Uighuristan out of territories belonging to China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Three of those... MORE

The real mystery of the fortnight in Russian politics was Moscow's Chechen policy. A flurry of contradictory official statements about the prospects for a negotiated settlement to the war had observers scratching their heads. Were these statements part of a clever attempt to assuage the... MORE

According to one persistent rumor, Putin had decided on a replacement for Maskhadov as Chechen leader--Bislan Gantemirov, the former mayor of Grozny, the Chechen capital. Gantemirov had subsequently been jailed by the Kremlin for embezzlement, but was released last year to head the police force... MORE

On the world stage, meanwhile, a contentious two weeks for Russia's diplomats appeared to close with the gains outweighing the setbacks. On the positive side of the ledger, from Moscow's perspective at least, were the Russian parliament's approval of a pair of key arms control... MORE

Indeed, if aggressive Russian moves in the area of arms control appeared to be paying some dividends, the same could not be said of its ongoing efforts to defend Russian military operations in the Caucasus. Russian diplomats suffered a serious setback on April 26 when... MORE

Vladimir Putin conveyed a political point by stopping in Minsk on his way to London and by making Belarus the first country he visited after winning Russia's presidential election. Putin's talks with counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka on April 16 in Minsk focused on the implementation of... MORE

On April 17-18, Vladimir Putin paid his first visit to Ukraine as president of Russia. The presence of Defense Minister Igor Sergeev, Fuel and Energy Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny, Gazprom chairman Rem Vyakhirev, and other heads of Russian government departments in Putin's delegation had seemed to... MORE

On April 8, the Central Election Commission made the obvious official, announcing that Vladimir Putin had won Russia's March 26 presidential election. Moscow's ever-active rumor mill then turned its sights on the issue of who would be in Putin's new cabinet, which the president-elect was... MORE