On July 31-August 1, Russia's deputy foreign affairs minister and presidential envoy for Caspian issues, Viktor Kalyuzhny, conferred with the Iranian leaders in Tehran on Caspian mineral rights and related issues of the Caspian Sea's legal status. The discussions in Iran capped those conducted by... MORE

The suspense continued to build this week over just how President Vladimir Putin will resolve the very public wrangle which has erupted between competing camps atop the Russian military establishment. The awkwardness of the current situation was highlighted during a pair of military events, the... MORE

President Vladimir Putin, who last week signed a decree supporting the creation of an advisory State Council as a bone to proffer Russia's regional leaders, said yesterday that it would be useful if the new body were given constitutional status. He was quoted as saying... MORE

Observers are split over whether the new State Council will materialize into a serious new organ of state power. The idea--or something like it--has a rather long pedigree in Russia's post-Soviet history. Various influential politicians and officials proposed something like the State Council in the... MORE

The governing Fatherland Union/Lithuanian Conservatives (FU/LC) and their Christian-Democratic junior allies are widely seen to be headed for defeat in the parliamentary elections this coming October. The electorate is in the throes of a cyclical mood of discontent with the Conservative-promoted market reforms. FU/LC, led... MORE

From July 29 to August 1, Kazakh army and Internal Affairs troops held exercises in the south of the country. Kyrgyz military units joined in some phases of the exercises. Watched by President Nursultan Nazarbaev in his capacity as commander in chief of Kazakhstan's armed... MORE

The apparently never-ending effort of Russian authorities to prosecute the well-known nuclear whistleblower Aleksandr Nikitin on treason charges has taken an unexpected and even bizarre turn in recent weeks. On May 30 the Russian Prosecutor General's office made an apparently unprecedented appeal to the full... MORE

A top Kremlin official has confirmed that Gazprom, Russia's natural gas monopoly, is negotiating to take over Media-Most, the media empire founded and headed by Vladimir Gusinsky. Vladislav Surkov, a deputy presidential administration chief, told the New York Times that talks between Gazprom and Media-Most... MORE

The Kremlin is reportedly negotiating with Boris Berezovsky to take back the 49-percent share in Russian Public Television (ORT) which the tycoon reportedly controls. A Russian newspaper reported that the state had decided to take back the minority share in ORT, which is 51-percent state-owned,... MORE

An isolated interethnic clash in Lviv more than two months ago has gradually turned into a problem of interstate relations between Ukraine and Russia. On May 28 in that western Ukrainian city, the Ukrainian music composer Ihor Bilozir died in an intensive-care hospital ward after... MORE