The Kremlin's recent, well-publicized effort to launch substantive and long-overdue military reforms appeared to take an unexpected lurch to the side this week. Expectations had been high that a meeting of the increasingly influential Russian Security Council, scheduled to convene on September 27, would take... MORE

Russia's Prosecutor General's Office yesterday launched a criminal case into alleged embezzlement by the heads of the companies belonging to the Media-Most holding. The case was brought in connection with a complaint by Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly and a Media-Most creditor, that the media... MORE

Oligarch-watching is one of the Russian media's favorite pastimes, and the press has recently discovered a "new" tycoon whose political influence is reportedly greatly increasing. The new rising star is Vladimir Kogan, chairman of the observer's council of the Promstroibank-St. Petersburg. According to one observer,... MORE

Ahead of another cold season, Moldovan Prime Minister Dumitru Braghis spent three days in Moscow as a supplicant for gas, electricity and debt relief. Moldovan political concessions also entered the picture, apparently at Braghis' initiative, during his September 25-27 discussions with Russia's Prime Minister Mikhail... MORE

More than a month after the tragedy in the Barents Sea which left 118 Russian submariners dead, confusion continues to plague government efforts to reach decisions on whether and how to mount separate operations aimed at recovering bodies and raising the vessel itself. The government's... MORE

Media-Most founder and owner Vladimir Gusinsky has been summoned to appear again at the Prosecutor General's Office. The summons, which was issued yesterday, ordered the media magnate to appear for questioning tomorrow (September 29) as a witness. However, Gusinsky's lawyer, Genri Reznik, said that the... MORE

President Vladimir Putin sees the battle between Gazprom and Media-Most as a conflict between two "economic subjects"--to use his term--which must be adjudicated in court, and one in which he will not interfere. That, at least, is how his position was described by presidential press... MORE

On September 26-27 in Tbilisi, NATO's Secretary-General George Robertson made the point that issues of defense and security in the South Caucasus should not become objects of East-West political competition. Robertson cast regional security in the broader context of European security: "We realize that our... MORE

A legal battle is shaping up in Switzerland over the so-called Mabetex case, involving the alleged laundering of bribes paid by two affiliated Swiss construction-engineering firms, Mabetex and Mercata Trading, to top Russian government officials. On September 25, a Swiss court ordered that accounts belonging... MORE

At least four people were killed yesterday after Russian forces fired on the bus they were traveling on in the suburbs of Djohar [Grozny], the Chechen capital. According to the human rights group Memorial, the troops were passing by in an armored column when they... MORE