President Petru Lucinschi and Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin are jointly reshaping the Moldovan government to their own advantage and the detriment of Moldova's independence. Lucinschi and Voronin--the past and the current leader, respectively, of the republic's Communist Party--have forged a tactical alliance in Moldova's... MORE

Ukraine's liberal Premier Viktor Yushchenko looks as close to retirement as he ever has done since his appointment in December 1999. In interviews with journalists over last week he made it clear that he is morally ready to quit. Yushchenko has almost singlehandedly tried to... MORE

The legal war which Russian security forces have waged in recent years against domestic nuclear researchers and others accused of espionage took an ominous turn last week when the Russian Supreme Court ordered a new trial for a Russian officer who had earlier been acquitted... MORE

Sergei Shoigu, Russia's emergency situations minister and leader of the pro-Kremlin Unity party, appears to be in political trouble. Last week, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov publicly took Shoigu to task for the misappropriation of state funds which allegedly took place inside his ministry. Speaking to... MORE

Azerbaijan's central authorities have completed a review of the returns from the November 5 parliamentary elections, which were marred by tampering on the part of local authorities. The Central Electoral Commission and the Constitutional Court have annulled the victories of pro-government candidates in eleven single-mandate... MORE

Russian news media have in recent days given as much attention as their U.S. counterparts have to the revelation that the Kremlin will withdraw from a 1995 Russian-U.S. agreement limiting Moscow's arms sales to Iran. As described in a Jim Hoagland piece published by the... MORE

President Vladimir Putin's representative in the Southern federal district, Viktor Kazantsev, announced on November 23 in Rostov-on-Don that his representatives have been holding talks with Chechen rebel field commander Ruslan Gelaev. At the same time, Kazantsev ruled out any possibility for talks with Chechen President... MORE

The St. Petersburg law enforcement authorities' raids on the city's major banks continued last week when armed police commandos searched the offices of Baltiisky Bank and Balt-Oneximbank and seized documents. The previous week, armed police carried out a similar operation against Promstroibank-St. Petersburg, and federal... MORE

Alone among the CIS countries, Moldova does not have a presidential system of government. The parliament is dominant, as well as being itself dominated by the Communist Party--the only viable and mass-based political party in a country which has yet to develop a real multiparty... MORE

A new piece of the Russian arms export puzzle was put in place on November 16 when it was announced in Moscow that Mikhail Dmitriev has been named a deputy minister of defense for industry, science and technology. The appointment is important because it apparently... MORE