President Boris Yeltsin's opponents, having failed to find a constitutional means of ousting him from power, have now trained their guns on his chief-of-staff, Anatoli Chubais. The press has been having a field day with a copy of Chubais' statement covering his account with Most... MORE

Shamil Basaev, 32, has been one of Russia's most wanted criminals since the hostage-taking raid he led on the town of Budennovsk in 1995. He is undoubtedly the least acceptable to Moscow of all the presidential candidates. Almost all the polls show Basaev as second... MORE

"If the elections are conducted fairly, I have no doubt I shall win in the first round," says Chechen presidential candidate Aslan Maskhadov. Fellow candidate Movladi Udugov agrees. He says that "according to the polls, there won't be a second round, since Maskhadov will win... MORE

Voting is under way today in Chechnya for a new president and parliament. (BBC, January 27) Voting boxes specially made in Austria and 700,000 ballot papers were delivered to polling stations last week, and about 500,000 voters are expected to take part. The election is... MORE

Quoting several Foreign Ministry sources, the Interfax news agency on January 24 revealed some of Russia's ideas about the current Vienna talks on revising the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. Recognizing that these talks were the "only real tool" Moscow had to mitigate... MORE

The director of Russia's Federal Security Service, Nikolai Kovalev, will reportedly head up a new commission tasked with preventing and combating terrorism. Under a statute approved by the Russian government, the new agency will coordinate the activities of Russia's various military and security structures in... MORE

Madeleine Albright, recently confirmed as U.S. secretary of state and viewed in the Kremlin as one of Washington's foremost hawks on NATO enlargement, appeared to move on January 24 to ease some of Moscow's fears on that score. In her first press conference since being... MORE

The International Monetary Fund may delay installments of its $10.1 billion loan to Russia. An IMF mission left Moscow on January 24 saying that it had not completed its review of the country's recent economic performance. The Fund has not yet released the November and... MORE

At the beginning of next year, Russia's Central Bank intends to charge for its services. According to First Deputy Chairman Sergei Aleksashenko, this will not only bring the Central Bank a tidy profit but also encourage the private sector to develop alternative services. (Nezavisimaya gazeta,... MORE

Financier Donald Trump is reportedly about to sign an agreement to restore Moscow's dilapidated Hotel Moskva. According to Moscow city officials, he is also considering restoring the Hotel Rossiya, diagonally across Red Square from the Kremlin. Two years ago the Rossiya was so badly infested... MORE