The report that international war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte had met with Akhmed Zakaev, emissary of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, provoked an almost immediate reaction from a number of leading Russian politicians. Dmitry Rogozin, head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, urged... MORE

Official Moscow stands before an uneasy process of adjustment to the irreversibility of Georgia's independence. In words at least, tactically perhaps, President Vladimir Putin seems to be initiating that process. Catalyzed by the entry of the U.S. military in Georgia, the adjustment in Moscow begins... MORE

The legality of the election campaign in Crimea, with a vote scheduled for March 31 (the same day as the national elections), has been called into question. The ensuing deadlock clearly benefits both the Crimean Communists and their leader, Leonid Hrach, who was disqualified early... MORE

Russia and the United States stood on the verge of a trade war yesterday as government leaders in Moscow joined with their counterparts in a host of other affected countries to condemn the Bush administration's decision this week to impose tariffs on steel imports. The... MORE

Bernard Bertossa, the state prosecutor in the Swiss city of Geneva, announced yesterday that he had found Pavel Borodin, the former Kremlin property manager who is now state secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, guilty of laundering 38 million Swiss francs (US$22.4 million) in Switzerland. Bertossa... MORE

In recent weeks, some ethnic Armenian residents in Georgia's Javakheti province have been holding street rallies demanding an autonomous status in relation to the central government. This demand is not new, but recurrent, tending to surface during periods of tension within Georgia, such as has... MORE

Pro-Russian circles in Kyrgyzstan have begun rearguard political actions to create difficulties for the American forces deployed there. While the American and allied troop presence and infrastructure continue to grow, the obstructions appear designed to slow that growth, render that presence unpopular, erode its legal... MORE

Negotiations between Russia and NATO on a plan to boost cooperation apparently remain deadlocked in the wake of another round of high-level talks, this one taking place in Moscow on March 4. The talks were led on the NATO side by Guenther Altenburg, the most... MORE

Yesterday Boris Berezovsky held his long-awaited press conference to present what he had promised would be evidence proving that Russia's special services were behind the September 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. Those terrorist acts killed more than 200 people and provided one... MORE

Boris Berezovsky failed during yesterday's London press conference to make a compelling case that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was involved in the September 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. This, however, apparently had no effect on the Kremlin's determination to prosecute Berezovsky,... MORE