Russian government officials have sharply condemned Friday's U.S. and British air strikes on Iraq, calling the military action unjustified and counterproductive. Moscow appears set to try to use the raids, which generated considerable criticism within the NATO alliance and throughout the Middle East, to exacerbate... MORE

On February 15, the State Duma rejected a legislative amendment which would have given the Russian president the power to appoint regional governors. The change was proposed by Vitaly Lednik, a member of the pro-Putin Unity faction in the Duma (Russian agencies, February 15; see... MORE

Russia's Deputy Minister for Natural Resources, Ivan Glumov, has unexpectedly lifted the veil over the profound differences between Russia and Kazakhstan regarding the division of the Caspian seabed. Glumov heads the Russian delegation to the negotiations with Kazakhstan on defining and drawing a median line... MORE

Leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF)-Dashnaksutiun and representatives of the Communist Party of Armenia are publicly demanding that Georgia confer a higher level of autonomy on the province of Javakheti. That Georgian province, bordering on Armenia, consists of four districts, two of which--Akhalkalaki and... MORE

After some two years of sometimes difficult negotiations, and four months after President Vladimir Putin failed to finalize the sale during a groundbreaking summit visit to New Delhi, Russia and India last week signed a major arms agreement under which India is to purchase 310... MORE

Media-Most founder Vladimir Gusinsky has said that he is ready to sell his stake in NTV, Media-Most's main television channel, provided both that it is sold to "independent investors" and that there is a guarantee that there will be no deal with the Kremlin which... MORE

The summit of the GUUAM group of countries (Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova), which was scheduled to be held in Kyiv on March 6-7, has been postponed for vaguely explained reasons and with no alternative date. According to Ukraine's ambassador in Baku, Borys Alekseyenko, this might be "May or... MORE

Sniping between Russia and the United States over U.S. missile defense plans escalated this week when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Moscow of itself being a major proliferator of missile technologies. In remarks he made during a February 14 appearance on PBS's "News Hour... MORE

Boris Berezovsky has reportedly started to implement his plan to "save" the media empire of his erstwhile bitter rival, Vladimir Gusinsky. The newspaper Izvestia, citing unnamed sources, reported today that Berezovsky had begun paying out the US$50 million credit he promised earlier this month to... MORE

On February 11-12, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid an official visit to Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk. Against the background of Ukraine's internal political crisis, Putin staged the visit as an implicit demonstration of political support for the embattled President Leonid Kuchma and, by the same token,... MORE