Media-Most, the embattled media holding founded and headed by Vladimir Gusinsky, may soon come under renewed financial pressure, and not only from its main creditor, Gazprom, Russia's 38-percent state-owned natural gas monopoly. According to a newspaper report today, Yukos oil company head Mikhail Khordokovsky recently... MORE

Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was detained yesterday at a military checkpoint in Chechnya's Vedeno region by federal forces. Ivan Babichev, the Russian military commander in Chechnya, said that the basis for the detention was that she did not have... MORE

Federal forces in Chechnya have been stepping up security measures in the republic in connection with the upcoming anniversary of Stalin's deportation of Chechens to Central Asia and Kazakhstan on February 23, 1944. It has already become a tradition, dating back to the 1994-1996 Chechen... MORE

s approaching moment of decision on Baltic membership seems to produce fresh qualms about enlargement in that region, even as older reservations are being laid to rest. The current set of misgivings runs as follows. First, Baltic entry would hurt NATO's relations with Russia because... MORE

Russian environmental groups went into action this week in yet another effort to slow passage of a draft piece of legislation which would open Russia to imports of nuclear waste from foreign countries. The bill is backed by Russia's powerful Atomic Energy Ministry, which thus... MORE

On February 19, Chechen rebels carried out a bloody attack on a Russian Interior Ministry troop column. Former Chechen Foreign Minister Movladi Udugov told Germany's Deutsche Welle radio the same day that rebel forces attacked the column as it moved from Gudermes to Argun, firing... MORE

Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko has announced that at least 17 billion rubles (around US$607 million) will be spent to rebuild the Chechen economy this year. The lion's share of these funds will go to rebuilding the republic's petrochemical industry. Khristenko noted that the republic's... MORE

Moldova received the second installment (US$12 million) from its loan from the International Monetary Fund under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PGRF) on February 2, 2001 (Interlic News Agency, February 3). Dumitru Braghis's government has been able to push through parliament a privatization program,... MORE

With the IMF's approval, the Tajik authorities recently introduced a new national currency, the somoni. Tajik rubles are now exchangeable for somoni for a five-month period which began on October 30, 2000, at a rate of 1,000 rubles for one somoni. The currency can be... MORE

From February 15 to 20, Russian and Tajik forces conducted combined "antiterrorist" exercises in southern Tajikistan. The exercises rehearsed defensive and counteroffensive operations in mountainous and desert areas in the event of penetration by Taliban forces from neighboring Afghanistan. Command staffs of Russia's 201st motor-rifle... MORE