Although the Kremlin was having trouble facing reality in Chechnya, it showed signs of being more prepared to face up to another intractable domestic problem. Boris Yeltsin had repeatedly highlighted the issue of crime, and particularly organized crime, during his tenure, but had been either... MORE

A fortnight of intense diplomatic maneuvering in the wake of U.S. President George W. Bush's January 29 State-of-the-Union speech was highlighted by a long interview President Vladimir Putin granted to the Wall Street Journal on February 11. The interview constituted the Kremlin's first official reaction... MORE

As the U.S. antiterror war began to move into its next phase, Russia also sought over the past fortnight to solidify friendly relations with India, arguably its key Asian partner. A successive pair of visits to New Delhi by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Deputy... MORE

On February 11 in Riga, Germany's Foreign Affairs Minister Joschka Fischer at last put his government unambiguously on record in favor of issuing NATO membership invitations to all three Baltic states this year. Fischer and his Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts, holding a landmark meeting... MORE

Visiting Russia's Tyumen Oblast--the principal source of Russian oil and gas--on February 11-13, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma spoke up repeatedly against proposals to lay a gas export pipeline to Europe bypassing Ukraine. On February 13 in the Kremlin, Ukraine's presidential administration chief Volodymyr Litvin was... MORE

The political event of the fortnight took place at the stroke of midnight on January 22, when TV-6, Russia's last major national television channel, was taken off the air on the orders of Press Minister Mikhail Lesin. The Russian authorities, of course, would dispute that... MORE

More intriguingly, after the TV-6 shutdown the authorities did not rest in their campaign against Berezovsky, who had gone into self-imposed exile in 2000 and remained resident in Western Europe. Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), announced that his agency had evidence... MORE

A shift in the U.S. war against international terrorism emerged ever more strongly as the main driving force in relations between Washington and Moscow over the past fortnight. This new reality was highlighted in U.S. President George W. Bush's January 29 State of the Union... MORE

This past fortnight the Baltic states made plans to contribute troop squads to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom underway in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Composed of professional soldiers, these squads will serve together with a Danish unit and are to be based at the United... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin has transferred Lieutenant-General Valery Yevnevich from the post of commander of Russian troops in Moldova to that of deputy commander in chief of Russia's ground forces, responsible for peacekeeping troops and operations. In his new post, Yevnevich will oversee Russian troop... MORE