Russian President Boris Yeltsin's latest illness would appear to strengthen Vladimir Putin's position. Indeed, while Yeltsin's most recent cycle of (apparent) relative physical well-being, culminating with his attendance at the OSCE summit in Istanbul, was accompanied by rumors that Putin might be fired, the latest... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin is again in the hospital, this time with suspected pneumonia. The president, who has reportedly been suffering from a viral infection and bronchitis since November 25, was taken to Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital yesterday following a meeting with Kremlin administration chief Aleksandr... MORE

Indeed, one of the more noteworthy aspects of the current tensions between Russia and the West over Chechnya is the relatively low profile role the United States has played in the confrontation. Prior to the OSCE summit, Washington had been a part of the general... MORE

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chairman Knut Vollebaek's de facto peacemaking mission to Russia fizzled yesterday as Moscow rebuffed both his efforts to arrange for OSCE representatives to visit Chechnya and Vollebaek's broader aim of winning a mediating role for the OSCE... MORE

The recent summit in Istanbul of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (see the Monitor, November 19, 22-24) provided a political backdrop to the signing of historic agreements on the export of Caspian oil and gas to international markets. The issue itself... MORE

While the positive trends in these data are a hopeful sign, their preliminary nature and the imperfections which plague the official statistics argue against ascribing excessive importance to them. Attention should perhaps be focused on three deeper trends. First, the CIS countries which have posted... MORE

Preliminary data released by the CIS Statistical Office (www.unece.org/stats/cisstat/macro0.htm) in mid-November show that most of the CIS economies recorded GDP growth in the third quarter. Four countries recorded growth rates above 7 percent, and one--Kyrgyzstan--posted double-digit output growth. Industrial production also grew strongly in most... MORE

Various Russian officials and politicians have sharply criticized comments made over the weekend by outgoing International Monetary Fund Director Michel Camdessus, that the IMF might withhold further disbursals for Russia on the basis of the military campaign in Chechnya. Camdessus, speaking at a conference in... MORE

On November 25, several Russian servicemen in the Ingushetian village of Septsovsk were involved in a shooting incident which took the life of a 22-year-old woman and wounded two other civilians. The soldiers apparently opened fire after the employees of a commercial kiosk refused to... MORE

Russia's military operations in Chechnya, meanwhile, have precipitated a major diplomatic wrangle between Moscow and the Czech Republic. The row began last week following the arrival in the Czech Republic of Ilyas Akhmadov, Chechnya's foreign minister. Akhmadov was in Prague at the invitation of the... MORE