Yesterday investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office, accompanied by Federal Security Service officers, once again raided Media-Most's headquarters in Moscow. The investigators questioned two of the holding's translators and then searched both their apartments and the apartment of an employee of the holding's finance department.... MORE

While critics of Putin and the Kremlin contend that the probe into Vladimir Gusinsky and Media-Most is politically motivated and evidence of a more general assault on Russia's independent press, Sergei Ivanenko (deputy chairman of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma) said yesterday that... MORE

Russian energy giants are eyeing Lithuanian enterprises and apparently probing for vulnerable spots in that country's new government. The government, based on the center-right Liberal Union and center-left New Union-Social Liberals, took over from the Conservatives last November. Last week, while on an official trip... MORE

Russia's parliament is still debating whether to allow the heads of some of the components of the Russian Federation to run for a third term in office. At the end of last year, the State Duma gave preliminary approval to an amendment to the law... MORE

The choice of a pipeline route from Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan oilfield has become a key issue in Caspian oil politics. According to preliminary estimates, Kashagan may well be the richest offshore oilfield discovered anywhere in the world in recent years, potentially matching the North Sea's... MORE

On January 19 Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry issued--and, for emphasis, reissued three days later--its sharpest yet condemnation of the Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova (GUUAM) group of countries. The attack reflects broader Russian policies in Eurasia, with decided implications for other countries. The ministry charges, first, that GUUAM has... MORE

A steady expansion of drug trafficking via Tajikistan has recently led international organizations and, finally, some Russian law enforcement bodies to abandon their earlier reticence and expose the real extent of the problem. It had become clear for some time--if only through perusal of Russian... MORE

The Russian navy announced last week that it had dispatched three warships from the Russian Pacific Fleet on a two-and-a-half month voyage into the Indian Ocean. The antisubmarine vessels Admiral Vinogradov and Admiral Panteleev, accompanied by the tanker Vladimir Kolechitsky, are scheduled to dock at... MORE

Yesterday marked the opening of the January session of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE). The voting rights of the Russian delegation to the assembly, which were suspended last year on the basis of human rights violations in Chechnya, were not reinstated yesterday, and... MORE

On January 18, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on a system of executive organs for Chechnya which basically provides the republic's administration with real power, not the vague authority which the head of provisional administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, had previously exercised. According to the decree,... MORE