Efforts by the Bush administration to sell its missile defense plans to key governments in Europe and Asia appear to have grown more complicated following Vermont Senator James Jeffords' recent defection from the Republican Party. That, at least, appeared to be the case during a... MORE

Talks in Budapest yesterday between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov lent some credence to Felgenhauer's reading of recent events. After the talks the Russian minister not only reiterated Moscow's position on retaining the ABM Treaty, but also denied... MORE

Khamzat Idrisov, Chechnya's first deputy premier, who was one of the first officials to receive a post in republic's new government at the beginning of the year, was arrested on May 26 on suspicion of having embezzled a large amount of state funds while serving... MORE

There has been no letup in the daily killings of civilians, military and police in Chechnya. The bodies of four Chechens, all of them residents of the town of Nozhai-Yurt, were discovered yesterday in the basement of a building in the Oktyabr region of Djohar... MORE

A group calling itself "For an End to War and the Establishment of Peace in the Chechen Republic" announced yesterday that it was beginning a campaign to pressure the Russian authorities to enter into negotiations with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. The group, which was formed... MORE

The CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) summit, just held in Yerevan, has marked a further step toward the division of the CIS into two groups of countries. One group consists of Russia and its five allies; the other group includes the five countries in GUUAM,... MORE

Primorye voters went to the polls on May 27 to elect a new krai governor. A local businessman emerged from nowhere to take first place. Coming in second was the former mayor of the region's capital city of Vladivostok. The result, however, was inconclusive. Neither... MORE

Another regional election campaign in Russia has also attracted national attention: the race for governor of Nizhegorod Oblast, where candidates last week began registering. On May 18 the oblast election commission registered the acting governor, Ivan Sklyarov, as a candidate. In all, twenty-three people say... MORE

On May 25, two elite units of Georgia's armed forces staged a mutiny that ended peacefully twenty-four hours later. Both units--the National Guard's Norio battalion (part of the Defense Ministry) and the Internal Ministry's Mukhrovani regiment--are staffed by seasoned officers and are better armed and... MORE

On May 25 in Yerevan, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, Robert Kocharian of Armenia, Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan and Imomali Rahmonov of Tajikistan signed the founding documents of rapid-deployment troops under the CIS Collective Security Treaty. With... MORE