January has ushered in a new stage in Primorsky Krai's energy crisis (see the Monitor, December 1, 2000; January 4, 9.) For several months now, events in that region of Russia's Far East have been the focus of media attention. For the press, the region... MORE

Ukraine's political independence from Russia has yet to be reflected in the ecclesiastical sphere, where the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate continues holding sway over a majority of Ukraine's believers. Historically identified with Russian state expansionism, and--in that same tradition--supportive of the Soviet atheist state's expansion,... MORE

Plans to increase Russian military spending stayed on track last month when the State Duma approved a defense spending bill for the year 2001 which will allocate just under 219 billion rubles (US$7.8 billion and 18.3 percent of Russia's total state budget) to the Russian... MORE

Bitter winter weather is putting a severe strain on heating systems throughout Siberia, where temperatures have dipped to minus 50 degrees Celsius and even lower. In the city of Krasnoyarsk, sixty multistory apartment buildings were without heat yesterday as a result of accidents in electricity... MORE

The American media mogul Ted Turner is currently negotiating a possible large investment in one of Russian media companies and, according to the Russian state news agency Itar-Tass, that company may be NTV, the flagship television channel of Vladimir Gusinsky's Media-Most group. Itar-Tass quoted Turner--the... MORE

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan, Imomali Rahmonov of Tajikistan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan met on January 5-6 in Almaty for a summit of the Central Asian Economic Community (CAEC), a Russian-approved subgroup within the CIS. Vyacheslav Trubnikov, first deputy minister... MORE

Russian-dominated Tajikistan struck a discordant note at this week's Central Asian Economic Community summit in Almaty, even adding to its record as a destabilizing factor in Central Asia. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, furthermore, hinted publicly that the Russian troops in Tajikistan form a part of... MORE

President Vladimir Putin used the Russian Christmas holiday weekend to accent relations with the country which Moscow hopes to make one of its most important Western partners: Germany. Putin and his wife Lyudmila hosted German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his wife Doris this past weekend... MORE

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov called again yesterday for negotiations with Moscow to end the conflict in the breakaway republic, which has been going on for almost a year and a half. Maskhadov said that the crisis in the North Caucasus would not end unless there... MORE

Russia's newly appointed ambassador, Konstantin Provalov, presented Estonia with a long bill of indictment on the very day of his arrival, January 5, before taking up his official duties. According to Provalov, "relations are marked by obviously negative tendencies" owing to "a series of steps... MORE