On June 13 the Lithuanian parliament adopted a law on the compensation of material damages the Soviet Union inflicted during their occupation of the country. Initiated by Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, the law passed with 68 votes in favor, 14 abstentions and none opposed in... MORE

Anatoly Chubais, chief executive officer of Russia's United Energy Systems (UES) electricity monopoly, is facing a revolt among the foreign investors who supported his appointment at UES last year. According to his critics, Chubais' program for restructuring UES by selling off the company's power generating... MORE

While his critics may see this as yet another fleecing of foreign investors by Russian oligarchs, Anatoly Chubais' restructuring program is broadly consistent with energy policies now being pursued in many countries. In addition to fully owning the high-tension power grid that transmits electricity throughout... MORE

The foreign shareholders of United Energy Systems (UES) are not persuaded by these arguments, however. The basic problem is that, in current Russian conditions, there are few credible buyers for Russia's power generating companies. UES, the energos, the FEC and the regional energy commissions (the... MORE

The situation in Chechnya remains extremely tense. On June 12, an Mi-8 helicopter crashed in the breakaway republic. It remains uncertain whether it was shot down by Chechen rebels or crashed due to a malfunction. It is also unknown how many people died in the... MORE

Akhmed Kadyrov, the newly appointed head of Chechnya's administration, is trying to use his influence to convince the rebels to put down their arms. Unlike the Kremlin, Kadyrov does not rule out the possibility of talks with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and other Chechen rebel... MORE

International conferences on communist crimes against humanity were held on June 12-14 in Vilnius and on June 15-16 in Tallinn. Pegged to the commemoration of the first wave of mass deportations of Balts to Siberia in 1941, the gatherings brought together Baltic government and parliamentary... MORE

Sergei Kovalyov, one of Russia's embattled few democratic deputies in the State Duma, developed his views on Russian-Baltic relations at a recent international conference in Tallinn. At that conference, Kovalyov spoke of Russian society's collective responsibility for the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, the... MORE

According to a recent IMF report ("Republic of Uzbekistan: Recent Economic Developments," IMF, March 2000), Uzbekistan's consolidated budget deficit in 1999 came in at only 1.9 percent of GDP. This was below the government's anticipated 3.0 percent budget shortfall, and suggests that Tashkent is succeeding... MORE

What President Vladimir Putin had hoped would be a triumphant visit to the West got off to a rough start yesterday when he was thrown on the defensive by the outpouring of press attention devoted to the arrest of Russian media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky, the... MORE