Last week saw the emergence of what could turn out to be a serious conflict between the federal center and one of Russia's regions. The parliament of the Republic of Tatarstan decided to bring the date of the election of the republic's president forward from... MORE

On September 30, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma released Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk from his post, replacing him with Anatoly Zlenko, a former minister of foreign affairs (1990-94) and ambassador to the UN (1994-97) and to France (1997 to date). Zlenko's record in office is... MORE

Following extensive meetings between the Ukrainian delegation and the IMF representatives during the IMF/World Bank summit in Prague this month, it seems that the Fund may soon decide on a resumption of funding to Ukraine under the US$2.6 billion Extended Fund Facility, which has been... MORE

The recent weakness of the hryvnya provided another visible and telling example of the need for additional funding from the IMF. The currency fell from 5.43 against the dollar in early September to 5.57 on September 28 (Bloomberg, September 28). The drop forced the Ukrainian... MORE

Twelve prominent Zviadists--associates of the late president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, violent opponents of the Georgian government--escaped from a Tbilisi prison during the night of September 30-October 1. The escapees include former National Guard commander Loti Kobalia, who has been serving a life sentence for gangsterism and... MORE

As the political standoff in Yugoslavia continued over the weekend, Russia found itself at the center of both a frenetic Western diplomatic effort aimed at ousting President Slobodan Milosevic from power and a whorl of rumors suggesting that the Yugoslav strongman might be seeking refuge... MORE

Boris Nemtsov, the head of the Union of Right-Wing Forces' faction in the State Duma, said in an interview yesterday with NTV television, the flagship channel of Vladimir Gusinsky's Media-Most holding, that he was certain that President Vladimir Putin was fully aware of Press Minister... MORE

The criminal trial of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky begins today in a court in the Sovietsky district of Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital. Babitsky is being tried on charges brought by the Russian Interior Ministry's investigation committee, which has accused the correspondent of using a... MORE

Armenian President Robert Kocharian seems to have returned almost empty-handed from his September 26-28 official visit to Russia. As Kocharian admitted upon returning to Yerevan, Armenian-Russian "economic relations lag significantly behind political relations." That observation, while accurate, stops short of acknowledging that the "political relations"... MORE

With the Islamist insurgency successfully contained in high-altitude areas, Central Asian governments are cracking down on "terrorist" groups in the countries' heartlands and cities. On September 30, the Iranian state radio's Tajik service reported from Hojand that almost 300 members of the banned fundamentalist Hezb-e... MORE