General Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the Russian armed forces' general staff, claimed yesterday that Chechen rebel field commander Shamil Basaev, had been killed, but a short time later backed away from his claim. Kvashnin's comments followed by just a few days the news that another... MORE

On April 27-28, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to review U.S. cooperation with each of them in the framework of antiterrorism operations. Rumsfeld had earlier visited Tajikistan and, twice, Uzbekistan. In Kyrgyzstan, Rumsfeld visited the U.S. troops at Peter Ganci... MORE

Yesterday Russia found itself briefly at the center of international diplomatic maneuvering over Iraq, as Moscow played host to separate one-day visits by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also happened to be in... MORE

Murat Zyazikov, the Kremlin-backed candidate in Ingushetia's presidential election, has defeated Alikhan Amirkhanov in a second-round run-off. According to Ingushetia's election commission, Zyazikov--a Federal Security Service (FSB) general and deputy to Viktor Kazantsev, President Vladimir Putin's representative in the Southern federal district--received 53 percent of... MORE

The conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, sparked by the Vatican's decision this past February to set up four dioceses in Russia, worsened on April 19, when the Russian authorities refused to allow Bishop Jerzy Mazur, a Polish citizen who heads... MORE

The presidents of the five Caspian countries held a summit meeting--the first in this format--on April 23-24 in Ashgabat. Long in the making and elaborately prepared by working groups, the summit nevertheless failed to bring the parties any closer to a consensus on how to... MORE

Aleksandr Lebed, the Krasnoyarsk governor and former general who served as national security tsar in Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin, died in a helicopter accident on April 28. According to Nikolai Ashlapov, Lebed's first deputy, who has taken over as acting Krasnoyarsk governor, the accident took place... MORE

Video footage showing the body of Khattab, the Chechen rebel field commander, was shown on Russian state television (RTR) on April 27, after which Chechen rebel media confirmed his death. The footage was apparently part of a video clip now posted on the Federal Security... MORE

Two conflicting visions on Ukraine's future are regaining sway in Moscow-Kyiv relations in the wake of Ukraine's parliamentary elections. Partly released from the constraints of the electoral campaign, which required constant deference to Russia-oriented voters in the east of the country, the Ukrainian government is... MORE

On April 25, four opposition factions in the newly elected Ukrainian parliament, hitherto divided on principal issues, signed a joint declaration on the results of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) election of March 31. Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc, Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine center-right bloc, the Socialist Party... MORE