According to a poll carried out at the end of October, a majority of Russians do not believe that their country is a democracy. The poll, which was carried out by the All-Russian Center for Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), asked respondents whether they thought... MORE

In a statement published yesterday, Russia's Security Council's Secretary Sergei Ivanov used drastic language to reject any talks with Afghanistan's Taliban authorities. Ivanov, moreover, called for imposing "severe sanctions on those who assist the Taliban financially and militarily or who enter into any contacts with... MORE

Russia's top government officials, politicians, analysts and media reacted yesterday to the photo finish in the U.S. presidential vote and the likelihood of a George W. Bush presidency. President Vladimir Putin said that he and his team know in detail the programs of both Bush... MORE

The trial of accused American spy Edmond Pope took an unexpected turn yesterday when the prosecution's chief witness apparently recanted his earlier testimony against Pope. According to Pavel Astakhov, Pope's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Babkin had submitted to the Moscow court which is trying Pope a... MORE

Pavel Borodin, the former Kremlin "property manager" who is now state secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, has said that he plans to sue both the investigators from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and mass media who have accused him of corruption. Borodin has been named... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be reversing his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to renounce military intervention in Afghanistan. Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeev met for the first time openly with the commander of the "northern Afghan alliance," Ahmad-Shah Masood, in late October in Dushanbe.... MORE

Russia and China moved to further enhance their "strategic partnership" last week during a high-profile, two-day visit to Beijing by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov which included talks with both Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Some fourteen agreements were signed... MORE

Yesterday, November 7, marked the eighty-third anniversary of the "Great October Socialist Revolution" which marked the founding of the Soviet Union. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, President Boris Yeltsin's government kept the day as an official holiday but renamed it the... MORE

On November 6-7 in Vilnius, representatives of Baltic, Polish, Czech and Ukrainian political groups and the Belarusan opposition sponsored an international conference on the situation in Belarus. Under the motto, "Belarus and Central Europe," the forum discussed the means to support the development of civil... MORE

In advance of a planned summit in Kyiv which is expected to institutionalize GUUAM, its five member countries--Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova--are taking collective steps to assert their association's presence on the international level. The government of Azerbaijan seems to be playing a coordinating... MORE