The situation on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia, where thousands of Chechen refugees have gathered in preparation for leaving their war-torn republic, remains tense. The Russian armed forces guarding the Kavkaz-1 checkpoint on the administrative border between the two republics allowed only a few... MORE

In what was apparently the one substantive diplomatic success during Putin's visit to Oslo (from the West's perspective, at least), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Chairman Knut Vollebaek announced yesterday that Russia had agreed to allow a mission from the organization to... MORE

Two days of talks between Russian and Western leaders in Oslo, Norway, yielded no breakthroughs and few successes. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continued to defy international calls for Moscow to step down its military operations in Chechnya. Moscow and Washington continued also to butt... MORE

On October 27, Lithuanian Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas made good the resignation threat he had issued the preceding week (see the Monitor, October 21) on the basis of what he regarded as excessive financial obligations for Lithuania in the contract with Williams. Paksas, a highly... MORE

On October 29, the Lithuanian government and the U.S. company Williams International Company signed the long-awaited investment contract and related documents concerning Lithuania's oil sector. The signing crowned twenty months of negotiations which had at times seemed on the brink of collapse. Williams acquires, effective... MORE

When third-quarter GDP growth figures are released for the Baltic countries, they are expected to show that growth has returned to Estonia and Latvia. Lithuania's third-quarter GDP, however, will almost certainly still be falling, even though the output drop in Lithuania this year has already... MORE

When the ruble collapsed in August 1998, the Baltic states seemed better placed to resist the "Russian flu" than the other Soviet successor states. But in contrast to the CIS countries, most of which reported GDP growth in 1998 and the first half of 1999,... MORE

Russia's Press Ministry yesterday received a complaint from the country's Central Election Commission (CEC) against Sergei Dorenko, anchor of the Sunday evening news analysis program on Russian Public Television (ORT). The CEC charged that Dorenko had violated Russia's electoral laws by "agitating against" former Prime... MORE

Aside from the beefs that he apparently will hear from the American delegation in Oslo, Putin is also likely to face considerable criticism from European leaders over Russian policy in the Caucasus. The Russian premier already went through this once recently--during the October 22 Russian-EU... MORE

NTV television, which is becoming one of the few Russian media outlets critical of the Chechen campaign, has begun referring to the refugee situation on the border between Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia as a "humanitarian catastrophe"--the term used by aid agencies and governments to describe... MORE