In November, when Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov accused Media-Most of having taken on debts worth more than its total assets and summoned the holding's founder, Vladimir Gusinsky, for questioning on charges of large-scale fraud, the Monitor wrote that "it is hard to escape the... MORE

In another potentially ominous sign for Russia's beleaguered independent press, Oleg Lurye, the investigative reporter who has done much probing into the Mabetex case, which the Prosecutor General's Office closed down last week, was severely beaten outside his home over the weekend. Lurye, who writes... MORE

On November 17, Chechen rebels fighters attacked the mayor's office in Djohar [Grozny], the Chechen capital. The attack took place around noon, local time, after a group of Chechen policemen discovered a group of rebels some fifty meters from the building housing the mayor's office.... MORE

At its congress on December 16, the United People's Party--UPP, largest Russian party in Estonia--issued a resolution "On Estonia's foreign policy," opposing the country's quest to join NATO. The resolution incorporates the Russian government's main arguments against Baltic accession to NATO: first, that it would... MORE

Edmond Pope's long ordeal came to an apparently happy conclusion yesterday when, following President Vladimir Putin's pardon, the U.S. businessman was released from prison and whisked away to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Pope, a businessman and former naval intelligence officer, was arrested April 3... MORE

Geneva Prosecutor Bernard Bertossa has criticized the Russian authorities' decision to shut down the Mabetex case. Ruslan Tamaev, the former chief Mabetex investigator who is now deputy head of the Prosecutor General's Office's department of high-profile cases, announced on December 13 that the case had... MORE

The two officers of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Georgia (UNOMIG), who were abducted by Svan highlanders in the Kodori Gorge on December 10, were released four days later and are now in Tbilisi. Lieutenant-Colonel Zbigniew Lehacz of Poland and Captain Evstafios Kokilidis... MORE

Moscow's political, economic and military pressures on Georgia are designed to force a change in the country's choice of a Western orientation. More than one year after Vladimir Putin--as prime minister of Russia in late 1999--took personal charge of that campaign, the leadership in Tbilisi... MORE

The political standing of the Russian Defense Ministry took a fresh hit yesterday when charges involving a gross misuse of funds were formally leveled against the head of the ministry's finance department, Colonel General Georgy Oliynik. Also implicated in the case, which involves the disappearance... MORE

This year's round of gubernatorial contests continued on December 10 with elections in five regions--Khabarovsk Krai, Bryansk Oblast, Vladimir Oblast, Kastroma Oblast and Kurgan Oblast, which had a runoff election to choose its governor (Russian agencies, December 9-11). The attitude of national commentators on the... MORE