The Russian military high command has intensified its criticism of U.S. missile defense plans over the past week, with one key rocket forces commander outlining in especially explicit terms the sorts of countermeasures Moscow is contemplating. The harshness of these most recent comments--which were voiced... MORE

Swiss prosecutors have formally charged Bahgjet Pacolli, head of the Swiss construction-engineering firm Mabetex with paying bribes to Russian officials for lucrative contracts to refurbish government buildings. While Daniel Devaud, investigating judge in the city of Geneva, did not give details of the charges, the... MORE

The situation in Chechnya will be one of the topics on the agenda during the summer session of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), which opens on June 26 in Strasbourg. However the issue will be discussed without Russia's participation: as a sign of... MORE

The attempts by Akhmad Kadyrov, the new head of Chechnya's provisional administration, to convince the rebels to put down their arms has begun bearing fruit. On June 26, three influential Chechen rebel field commanders went on local television and asked their fellow rebels to put... MORE

Bilateral negotiations on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia were held on June 23-25 in Tbilisi. The round was the second since the November 1999 Istanbul summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which required Russia to withdraw its forces... MORE

Authorities in several Central Asian countries are stepping up measures against Islamist underground groups. The main targets are the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Hezb-e Tahrir organization, both of which operate from bases abroad. IMU seeks to establish an Islamic state in Uzbekistan.... MORE

Moscow rejoined long-time allies Belgrade and Beijing on June 23 when Russia's UN ambassador denounced efforts to ban representatives of Yugoslavia from Security Council meetings and then stormed out of a debate on the Balkans for precisely that reason. The same Security Council session also... MORE

On June 23, the State Duma approved both a second and a third reading of President Putin's bill "On the procedure for forming the Federation Council [the upper house of the Russian parliament]." According to Aleksandr Kotenkov, the president's representative in the Duma, "not one... MORE

Treating Latvia as the primary target and Estonia as a secondary one, while seemingly cultivating Lithuania, has been just about the only predictable feature of Russia's policy toward the Baltic states in the last two years. Introduced by Yevgeny Primakov while prime minister of Russia,... MORE

Buffeted by continuing combat fatalities in Chechnya, and facing both declining numbers of eligible draftees and growing numbers of draft evaders, the Russian military command is turning to illegal methods in its efforts to get more young Russian men in uniform, a human rights group... MORE