The Russian Duma has adopted a bill intended to prevent smaller regions (autonomous okrugs) from seceding from larger one (krais and oblasts). There are eight autonomous okrugs (AOs) in Russia. Typically, they are sparsely populated, located in inhospitable areas, and rich in natural resources such... MORE

The U.S. intelligence community suffered yet another shock yesterday when a 13-year veteran of the FBI was arrested on charges of selling secrets to Moscow. The arrest of Earl Edwin Pitts, who joined the agency in 1983 and was employed most recently at the FBI's... MORE

The welcome news that Raduev had released unharmed his 22 hostages was counterbalanced by fears for the safety of a delegation of high-ranking North Ossetian officials who were taken captive in northern Chechnya yesterday. The delegation included Schmidt Dzoblaev, the general secretary of the Assembly... MORE

If NATO defense ministers thought that Igor Rodionov's recent switch from uniform to mufti would soften the former general's views about NATO expansion, they were quickly disabused of that notion when the Russian defense minister met with them in Brussels yesterday. All of their carefully-crafted... MORE

At a checkpoint in Gerzel Raion on the border between Chechnya and Dagestan, meanwhile, a detachment of Chechen fighters under Salman Raduev yesterday released all 22 of the policemen that it had held hostage for the four preceding days. (Interfax, December 18) Raduev and Russian... MORE

In a sinister echo of the murder one day earlier of six Red Cross workers, six elderly Russian civilians were shot dead yesterday in two separate houses in the Chechen capital. The victims -- three men and three women -- were all aged over 60.... MORE

The Russian Duma has adopted in the first reading a law on the privatization of state property. The law sharply reduces the right of the state to hold a stake in private companies. It also reduces the extent to which foreign investors may invest in... MORE

The chairman of the Russian Duma's Defense Committee said on December 17 that the 80 trillion rubles allocated for defense in 1996 failed to meet the army's minimal needs, and that his committee will work to raise defense spending in the 1997 budget to at... MORE

Analysts say that Iraq's recent "oil-for-food" deal with the UN, strongly backed by Russia, could actually undermine profits earned by Moscow from some of its own oil exports. Russian Urals crude oil is said to be similar to Iraq's Kirkuk blend, and the two were... MORE

In 1996, foreign investments in the Russian space industry accounted for nearly 40 percent of all funds invested, and the general director of the Russian Space Agency, Yuri Koptev, said he expected $600 million in foreign money next year. He said that the industry would... MORE