The so-called "mine war" continues to rage in Chechnya. On October 21, microbus was blown up in the town of Gudermes, injuring two people. Over the weekend, mines or bombs killed three Chechen villagers. The Russian military, meanwhile, is continuing to carry out operations to... MORE

Turkey's new president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, paid official visits on October 16-20 to the four Turkic countries of Central Asia. Sezer had first visited Azerbaijan upon his election (see the Monitor, July 14). This series of early presidential visits points to a revigoration of Turkey's... MORE

The lost Russian submarine Kursk continued to grab headlines this week, as an operation to recover the bodies of the vessel's crew generated fresh controversy and raised new questions about the government's policies. Those skeptical of the recovery mission have posed two key points. One... MORE

German Gref, Russia's minister of economic development and trade, confirmed yesterday that that the government had already approved a timetable for removing Central Bank capital from both Sberbank and Vneshtorgbank and from its foreign subsidiaries. This follows a statement the previous day from Prime Minister... MORE

Vladimir Kozhin, the Kremlin's "property manager," confirmed this week that precious stones and metals from Gokhran, the Finance Ministry's depository, will be sold off at a hotel-and-auction complex on Red Square. Kozhin said that the planned hotel-and-auction center, the Federal Kremlin Complex, would use a... MORE

The guerrilla war in Chechnya shows no signs of letting up. The Russian military command reported yesterday that one serviceman had been killed and another wounded as a result of an attack by Chechen rebels on a column of automobiles traveling in Chechnya's southern mountains.... MORE

The parliamentary elections just held in Lithuania have produced the quadrennial sea change which has become the norm in that country. But if the 1992 and 1996 elections resulted in clear-cut parliamentary majorities--of the center-left and the conservative right, respectively--this election has produced a complicated... MORE

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Kudrin announced on Monday (October 16) that the country's projected defense spending for next year has been increased by 12.5 billion rubles, but it remains unclear whether the increase will be viewed as a victory or a defeat by the... MORE

Boris Berezovsky appeared yesterday for questioning at the Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow, in connection with the alleged diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars from the state airline Aeroflot through two Swiss firms, Andava and Forus Services. The tycoon was questioned by Alexander Filin,... MORE

Meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on October 16 in Sochi, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma officially agreed to hand over to Moscow an as-yet-unspecified ownership share in Ukraine's gas transit system. That system of pipelines, pumping stations and large-capacity storage sites handles annually up to... MORE