National surveys show Vladimir Putin holding on to a solid majority of popular support, in the region of 55-60 percent, with Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov running a distant second, with less than 20 percent support. The only question that most analysts are discussing is whether... MORE

The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday registered Vladimir Zhirinovsky as a candidate for the March 26 presidential election. The CEC's registration of the ultranationalist leader came one day after Russia's Supreme Court satisfied Zhirinovsky's appeal of the CEC's refusal last month to register him. Zhirinovsky... MORE

Inflation rates in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all dropped sharply in 1999. In December, consumer prices in December were rising by just 3.3 percent in Estonia, 2.4 percent in Latvia and 0.8 percent in Lithuania (compared to their December 1998 levels). Inflation is likely to... MORE

In late February the IMF confirmed that the US$22 million tranche of a US$57 million structural loan to Azerbaijan, initially suspended at the end of 1999 due to the Fund's displeasure with Baku's willingness to introduce economic reforms, remains frozen. The Fund also emphasized that... MORE

While Russian differences with Europe and the United States over Chechnya have received considerable attention in the Western press, parallel but quieter Russian moves to blunt Arab criticism of the Caucasus war have received notably less. Moscow's efforts in this area were on display again... MORE

Voters in Saratov Oblast will go to the polls to elect a new governor on March 26--the same day that voters all over Russia cast ballots for a new president. Three candidates are running in the Saratov race: incumbent Governor Dmitri Ayatskov, businessman Spartak Tonakanyan... MORE

On March 2, former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, one of the leaders of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma, announced that he would not, after all, run for governor of St. Petersburg. Stepashin, who had been seen as the likely favorite to defeat incumbent... MORE

A delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) made a "get-acquainted visit" to Moldova on March 1-3. Evidently motivated by the wish to help break the deadlock in the Chisinau-Tiraspol negotiations, the group--or at least its leader,... MORE

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Tajikistan made public on March 1 and 2 the official, incomplete, though conclusive returns of the February 27 parliamentary elections. At stake were the Assembly of Representatives' eighty-five seats, twenty-two of them to be allocated proportionately to party slates... MORE

Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the West yet another gesture of conciliation last week, suggesting unexpectedly in a BBC television interview that Russia might consider joining the NATO military alliance. Equally surprising, perhaps, was Putin's assertion that it is only "with difficulty" that he... MORE