In April, the State Duma ratified the Strasbourg Convention, which facilitates the recovery of laundered money from foreign financial institutions and thus Russia's participation in money laundering investigations launched by other governments. Last month, the Duma passed in its first reading an anti-moneylaundering bill that... MORE

Meeting in Shanghai on June 14-15, the presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a regional mechanism for security and cooperation. Some Russian and Chinese pronouncements seek to suggest that SCO encompasses most of Eurasia's landmass... MORE

The presidents signed a programmatic Declaration on the Establishment of the SCO and a Pact on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism. The document stipulates that the presidents are to hold regular annual summits, that the prime ministers are to meet twice a year, and that... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin's and Chinese President Jiang Zemin's respective speeches at the Shanghai summit differed in their respective emphases. Putin underscored the significance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in terms of regional security, and also as a nucleus for a system with a... MORE

That the road ahead remains pitted with potholes for Russian-American relations, despite this past weekend's cheery summit, was proven a day after the June 16 meeting, when Russian President Vladimir Putin used a visit to Yugoslavia to harshly criticize NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping mission. The potential... MORE

Russia's State Duma yesterday passed, in its second reading, the revamped Criminal Procedural Code (UPK), which advocates say will reduce the unchecked power of prosecutors and give both more power to lawyers and legal protection to the accused. The measure passed 290-2, winning support from... MORE

Three people were killed and thirty-seven wounded in a series of bombings in the Chechen city of Gudermes on June 19. Three car bombs went off within minutes of one another at the city's courthouse, Interior Ministry building and prosecutor's office. Bomb specialists discovered and... MORE

There is some light now at the end of the tunnel for Lithuania's Mazeikiai Oil, the largest oil-processing complex in the Baltics, coveted by Russia's Lukoil. The American company Williams International, operator and one-third owner of Mazeikiai, has succeeded in concluding a long-term supply agreement... MORE

The formation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh's cabinet of ministers is nearly complete. Only two positions remain to be filled: the deputy premier for economic reform and the minister for European integration. The latter will be a new position. The Industry Ministry, abolished under... MORE

Russian press coverage of this past weekend's Russian-U.S. summit in Slovenia has had much in common with Western treatment of the event. In general, both agree that the meeting's results exceeded expectations, particularly with regard to the personal rapport established between Presidents George W. Bush... MORE