With ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin's rise to the presidency of Russia, the defense of past KGB crimes and their perpetrators seems to have moved to center stage in Moscow's policy toward Latvia. The origin of this trend may be traced back to the tenure of... MORE

On February 22, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma delivered the first annual state of the nation address of his new term, making it quite clear that he is satisfied with the recent center-right coalition's taking control over parliament (see the Monitor, February 3, 16). For the... MORE

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan wound up two days of talks in Moscow yesterday during which he met with both Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin. As with so many high-level meetings between the two countries in recent years, this... MORE

One issue which did not get much play in press reports of Tang's visit to Moscow was Russia's and China's joint opposition to U.S. missile defense plans. This despite Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin's assertion on the eve of Tang's visit that the two... MORE

The commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has recently made several public pronouncements which seemed to give the impression that his beleaguered service is on the rebound. In fact, its prospects remain decidedly gloomy. Kuroyedov admits that the fleet has been decimated over... MORE

Federal forces have taken the town of Shatoi, located in Chechnya's mountains sixty kilometers (approximately thirty miles) south of the capital, Djohar. General Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of the Russian forces in Chechnya, declared that the seizure of Shatoi essentially marks the end of the... MORE

Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky alleged yesterday that his February 3 exchange for Russian POWs, ostensibly to Chechen rebels, was "a poorly planned action, apparently by the FSB [Federal Security Service]," aimed at taking revenge on him for his reporting on the Chechen war. In... MORE

In apparent deference to short-term political and financial considerations, the Georgian government is delaying progress on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export pipeline project. The other participants are Turkey, Azerbaijan, the international consortium of oil producers AIOC--Azerbaijan International Operating Company, led by British Petroleum Amoco--and the United... MORE

A UN Security Council meeting held this week and devoted to the Balkans has afforded the Russian government a fresh opportunity to criticize efforts by the West to ostracize and isolate the regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Russia's ambassador to the UN, Sergei Lavrov,... MORE

Over the past week the Kremlin has launched yet another push to win ratification by Russian lawmakers of the START II strategic arms reduction treaty. This latest effort appeared to begin on February 22, when Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov was quoted in a... MORE