In an interview published yesterday, Boris Nemtsov, head of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), put forward one of the most thoroughgoing critiques to date of President Vladimir Putin's rule. Nemtsov's comments came when his interviewer, Polit.ru's Mikhail Fishman, asked him to assess the first... MORE

On May 29-30 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatoly Zlenko handed over a message from President Leonid Kuchma to the alliance. The message officially confirms and elaborates on the Ukrainian executive leadership's May 23 decision to initiate preparations toward full membership... MORE

A week of historic diplomatic summitry continued near Rome on May 28 when Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. President George W. Bush and the leaders of other NATO nations to sign a landmark cooperation agreement. The Rome meeting followed immediately on the heels... MORE

In what may be yet another sign that Russia has the best legislature money can buy, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov confirmed yesterday that Andrei Vavilov, the former deputy finance minister who today controls the Severnaya Neft oil company, will represent Penzensk Oblast in the... MORE

The U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia summits, held on May 24-28, are not affecting the present stage of NATO's enlargement one way or the other. Earlier suppositions that Russia could use its enhanced relationship within NATO to slow down the enlargement are not being borne out. Neither,... MORE

On May 28, the former head of the presidential office, Volodymyr Lytvyn, became speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament). Hennady Vasiliev, a representative of the Donetsk group in the faction Lytvyn chaired, United Ukraine (UU), was elected first deputy speaker, and Oleksandr Zinchenko of the... MORE

On May 21, members of the Federation Council met with the heads of Russia's regional legislative assemblies to set up a new body called the Council of Legislators. The new council, which will be a consultative organ uniting the heads of the country's regional legislatures,... MORE

Viktor Basargin, deputy presidential representative in the Urals federal district, announced last week that the preliminary results of an audit of Kurgansk Oblast's finances showed that the region's financial situation is so bad that it may have to be put under external management. The presidential... MORE

On May 28 in Rome, an unprecedented summit of NATO's nineteen member countries and Russia launched a NATO-Russia Council (NRC), the first institutional expression of a growing political rapprochement. Russia receives some carefully regulated decisionmaking powers within that body, which has somewhat misleadingly been dubbed... MORE

On May 26 in Kyiv, the Communist Party of the former Soviet Ukraine, headed by Stanyslav Hurenko, officially merged with the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), headed by Petro Symonenko. The planned merger was approved unanimously by the 398 convention participants. Hurenko's Communist Party--banned in... MORE