On November 20-22, the self-styled foreign affairs ministers of Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Karabakh met in Transdniester's city of Tiraspol under Russian military protection. Their joint communique was publicized internationally courtesy of Armenia. The document expressed concern over the "GUUAM's growing activity and expanding... MORE

Ahead of the Vienna conference, Ukraine nominated Borys Tarasyuk to succeed Max van der Stoel for the post of OSCE high commissioner on national minorities. The GUUAM countries supported Tarasyuk unanimously. Tarasyuk had been released on September 30 as Ukraine's foreign affairs minister under Russian... MORE

The ministers' meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright inaugurated a new forum: the "GUUAM-United States consultative framework" at the foreign affairs ministers' level. The GUUAM ministers expressed appreciation for the "growing American interest" in the international role of the GUUAM countries as a... MORE

The five ministers seemed satisfied with GUUAM's unprecedented progress since the September meeting of the heads of state in New York. They reviewed preparations for the summit which is scheduled to be held in the first quarter of 2001 in Kyiv for institutionalizing GUUAM--that is,... MORE

...While the question "Who is Mr. Putin?" has yet to be answered definitively, there is a growing sense in Russia that Putinism, its rhetoric notwithstanding, is turning out to be little more than Yeltsinism with some new faces. Indeed, while Vladimir Putin began his first... MORE

In fact, Putin, like his predecessor, appeared to be having a hard time imposing order on his own inner circle, let alone on far-off Tatarstan or Chuvashia. One sign that a full-scale power struggle was going on inside the government were law enforcement raids on... MORE

The hints of upheaval in Russia's domestic political scene appear not to have spilled over--at least not yet--into Moscow's conduct of foreign policy. Indeed, Russian activities in this area have gone into overdrive in recent weeks and would seem, if anything, to reflect a new... MORE

?Russia's political fortnight marked what future historians might view as a decisive phase in what some present-day Russia watchers are calling the "replacement of the elites." The key event was the transformation of Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, two of the most influential Yeltsin-era tycoons,... MORE

Indeed, Putin also moved over the past fortnight to launch what could become a major restructuring of Russia's entire defense establishment. The creation of Rosoboroneksport appeared to be aimed not only at installing Putin's own people in key slots atop what will be Russia's main... MORE

In what the Kremlin and a number of foreign observers have described as a new and more vigorous effort by Russia to raise its profile in Asia, President Vladimir Putin traveled east on November 15 to participate in the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.... MORE