The visa regulations which Russia slapped on Georgia--but not on the two secessionist regions of Georgia--as of December 5 are only the visible tip of Moscow's policy iceberg. The move aims to exacerbate Georgia's economic predicament, undermine Georgian citizenship and cement the secession of Abkhazia... MORE

Russian military officials were uncharacteristically subdued last week in confirming reports that the Russian air force had transferred a handful of long-range strategic bombers to bases in northern Siberia, near Alaska. On December 1, a day after a U.S. Defense Department spokesman had told reporters... MORE

December 3 saw voting for regional executives in no fewer than eleven of the constituent republics and regions of the Russian Federation. Once again, the Kremlin failed to score a single decisive victory. Four of the elections were completed in just one round. In Astrakhan... MORE

The fate of Belarus, Moldova and Georgia hangs in the balance, after the failed year-end meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe (OSCE). Those three countries now face immediate threats to their statehood from the new Kremlin leaders... MORE

Allegations by Ukraine's Socialist Party (SPU) leader Oleksandr Moroz, who claimed that top Ukrainian leaders were involved in the disappearance of a journalist, shocked Ukraine last week. Moroz, a former parliament [Verkhovna Rada] speaker, addressing the Rada on November 28 accused President Leonid Kuchma of... MORE

More than three months after the disaster which sank the submarine Kursk, and in the wake of a recent recovery mission which brought to the surface only twelve of the vessel's 118-man crew, Russian government and military authorities appear still to be a long way... MORE

Sergei Stepashin, head of Russia's Audit Chamber, the state agency set up to monitor the use of federal budget funds, reported on December 1 that federal money earmarked for rebuilding war-torn Chechnya has been embezzled. Stepashin claimed at a press conference that top officials in... MORE

The Interior Ministry (MVD) is reportedly set to undergo a restructuring which will likely take its sub-units out of the hands of regional leaders and possibly bring the ministry under stricter control by President Vladimir Putin. Last week, General-Lieutenant Vyacheslav Brycheev, head of the MVD's... MORE

The presidents of eleven CIS member countries--all but Turkmenistan--held a summit meeting on December 1 in Minsk. The unprecedently sparse agenda included an "inventarizatsiya"--stock-taking, in the time-honored Soviet/Russian bureaucratic idiom--of unimplemented decisions and lapsed agreements of past CIS summits. The Minsk summit officially buried no... MORE

Two days of talks between Russian and Iraqi ministers concluded uncertainly in Moscow yesterday, with both sides hailing close bilateral ties between the two countries but with no apparent breakthrough having been achieved on the key issue of when or if UN arms inspections are... MORE