In formally abolishing the death penalty on February 22, Ukraine's parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has taken a dilatory but significant step toward true integration with Europe. Openly lauded by the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, the move was not a popular one... MORE

Following his easy re-election to another five-year term in January, Uzbekistan President Karimov announced his intention to at least partly liberalize economic policy, in order to create more favorable conditions for privatization and foreign investment (Reuters, January 2000). While liberalization measures would go a long... MORE

While Vladimir Putin's economic program remains something of a mystery, the acting Russian president has given some more hints, including a call for greater economic freedom. "The higher the degree of economic freedom of economic entities, the higher the development of the state," he said... MORE

In an opinion piece published yesterday by the Washington Post, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright defended the Clinton administration's stance with regard both to acting Russian President Vladimir Putin's political ambitions and to Russia's brutal war in the Caucasus (Washington Post, March 8). In... MORE

Madeleine Albright's protestations notwithstanding, the Clinton administration is likely to continue to hear demands that it take a harder line toward Moscow over the war in Chechnya. Indeed, a failure in this area now could ultimately undermine the administration's own strong backing for the so-called... MORE

Despite being released from prison in Makhachkala, Dagestan, Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky's travails continue. Babitsky, who was reporting from Chechnya before being detained by Russian forces there in mid-January, and then "exchanged" to Chechens of unknown affiliation, said at a news conference at Moscow's... MORE

When the Soviet Union fell apart, Moldovans--confounding outsiders' expectations--chose independent statehood, rather than uniting with the related nation of Romania, which had ruled most of present-day Moldova earlier in this century. Since 1991, Moldovan-Romanian political relations have been tranquil but uneasy, and the officially registered... MORE

After months of passivity and step-by-step retreat before his rivals for power, President Robert Kocharian is at last demonstrating that he can still hold his own and perhaps even go on the counteroffensive. Last week, antipresidential military prosecutors extended by another two months the investigative... MORE

In a page straight out of the late Yeltsin era, Russian diplomats and political leaders this week found themselves scrambling to explain what seemed to be poorly thought-out remarks on a key foreign policy issue voiced by the country's chief executive. Spin control of this... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin's March 5 remarks that he can hardly envision NATO "as an enemy," and that Russia might someday consider joining that military alliance have resonated in the Baltic states and in the most Western-oriented among the newly independent countries (BBC Television, Itar-Tass,... MORE