Russia has just seen its first political primary. On May 4 in St. Petersburg, local voters were asked to choose a single candidate to represent the city's liberal-right electorate in the gubernatorial election set for May 14. The experiment was carried out according to an... MORE

The end of April saw the start of the gubernatorial campaign in Samara Oblast. The pre-term election, set for June 2, became necessary when incumbent Governor Konstantin Titov resigned in the wake of his poor showing in Russia's recent presidential election. Titov was particularly embarrassed... MORE

A new Latvian government, headed by Latvian Way's Andris Berzins, was voted in by the parliament on May 5 and took office the following day. It is a four-party, right-of-center coalition holding sixty-nine of 100 parliamentary seats, consisting of the conservative People's Party, the right-of-center... MORE

In a move which could reverberate in the U.S. presidential election campaign, the Russian Foreign Ministry on May 5 released a statement which at least some in Washington will construe as an endorsement of sorts for Vice President Al Gore. The Russian comments, attributed to... MORE

Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as Russian president yesterday in a Kremlin ceremony attended by the leading representatives of the current Russian political elite, former top Soviet officials and foreign ambassadors. The guests ranged from top Russian tycoons and power brokers such as Roman Abramovich, head... MORE

Following his inauguration yesterday, President Vladimir Putin accepted the resignations of his cabinet members yesterday, as is required by the Russian Constitution, along with those other officials, including Aleksandr Voloshin, head of the Kremlin administration. Putin, who had been serving simultaneously as acting president and... MORE

On April 20, a drill surface-to-surface missile Tochka-U launched by Ukrainian Air Defense troops hit a nine-story apartment building in the town of Brovary, near Kyiv, killing three and injuring five. A Defense Ministry investigation announced on April 27 that the Soviet-made missile deviated from... MORE

Russia and China were criticized last weekend for a meeting which their UN ambassadors held last week with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. But despite their apparent unhappiness over the talks in Belgrade, diplomats suggested that the two permanent UN Security Council members were unlikely to... MORE

The Russian government yesterday sharply criticized Czech President Vaclav Havel for remarks he made late last month condemning Russia's war in the Caucasus. In a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow accused Havel of both raising doubts about Russia's territorial integrity and trying... MORE

As President-elect Vladimir Putin's May 7 inauguration approaches, Kommersant, one of the newspapers in Boris Berezovsky's media empire, has published a series of articles alleging that plans are afoot to give Kremlin administration almost authoritarian powers and to give the Federal Security Service (FSB) and... MORE