President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on May 13 which divides the Russian Federation into seven districts, each headed by a presidential representative. The seven districts will include: a Central district, centered around Moscow; a Northwestern district, centered around St. Petersburg; a North Caucasus district,... MORE

The scandal surrounding the May 11 raid on Media-Most's headquarters by armed government security agents has already turned into an all-out "media war." The weekend's news and news analysis programs on Russian State Television (RTR) and Russian Public Television (ORT) featured what can only be... MORE

Russia and NATO took another small step toward reconciliation last week when Russian General Staff Chief General Anatoly Kvashnin traveled to Brussels to attend a meeting of the NATO Military Committee--the Western alliance's highest military authority--and a session of the Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council. Kvashnin's... MORE

Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov tried change-the-subject tactics at the May 10-11 session in Strasbourg of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. By general consent, the session was scheduled to look into Russia's conduct of the war in Chechnya and the... MORE

On May 12, President Robert Kocharian nominated parliamentary majority leader Andranik Margarian as the new prime minister of Armenia, in place of Aram Sarkisian. The president had dismissed Sarkisian and his key supporter, Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian, on May 2, boldly seizing the initiative in... MORE

Yesterday, investigators from Russia's Prosecutor General's Office, accompanied by ski-masked commandos toting automatic weapons, raided both the offices of the Media-Most holding company in central Moscow, and the offices of NTV-Internet and Memonet, two internet companies connected to the holding company. Media-Most's main outlets are... MORE

As is usually the case with such incidents in Russia, much remains unclear about both who actually ordered yesterday's raid on Media-Most and the motives behind it. It is even unclear which security services were involved: The armed and masked commandos initially had emblems on... MORE

Some observers have speculated that the raid on Media-Most was a "provocation" against President Vladimir Putin--an attempt to make him look bad and put him in a difficult spot just four days after his inauguration. That theory was put forward yesterday by Sergei Karaganov, head... MORE

Russia appeared to dodge yet another diplomatic bullet this week when European foreign ministers meeting in Strasbourg backed off an earlier move by the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) which threatened to oust Russia from Europe's premier human rights organization. The Council's Committee of... MORE

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko headed a government delegation to Washington for a May 8-10 visit. Nine years into Ukraine's independence, Yushchenko became the first Ukrainian prime minister to be received by a U.S. president. Yushchenko's main goal in Washington was to obtain political and... MORE