A top official of the Federal Security Service (FSB) said yesterday that Russia's special services know the identities of "practically all" the persons involved in the September 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and the August 2000 bombing of the pedestrian underpass beneath the capital's... MORE

Exactly who perpetrated the September 1999 terrorist bombings in Russia remains an open question. For example, five men from the southern Russian republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia went on trial last July for organizing the Moscow and Volgodonsk blasts. But while they were eventually sentenced to prison... MORE

Moldova's Communist leadership seems well along in reenacting the classical model of the "permanent purge"--albeit a gentle one, Moldovan-style. Its latest casualties are officials known for their efforts to stop the reversal of market reforms and to preserve the past achievements in terms of relations... MORE

Studio 1+1, a popular Ukrainian television company and program, may suffer the same fate as Russia's TV-6. On February 1, Kyiv's economic court ruled to expel 1+1 from the air. On February 4, 1+1 filed an appeal. Big business interests are at stake. Nonetheless, the... MORE

An apparent rebuff the Kremlin delivered to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz appears to have roiled relations between longtime allies Russia and Iraq on the very eve of a new round of talks between Moscow and Washington on a U.S. plan to reshape the... MORE

On February 3 an Mi-24 helicopter gunship belonging to Russia's Federal Border Guards Service disappeared in Chechnya. The Mi-24 was accompanying an Mi-8 helicopter to the Chechen village of Tuskharoi, where the latter was to pick up six sick border guards and transport them to... MORE

A group of leading democratic politicians yesterday issued a statement protesting the closure of TV-6, the private national television network majority-owned by Boris Berezovsky. The channel's signal was cut January 22 on the orders of Russia's Press Ministry, which was acting on a Higher Arbitration... MORE

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and visiting Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo have agreed, on January 29-30 in Tbilisi, to initiate repatriating Chechen refugees living in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge to Russia. This decision comes against the backdrop of Georgia's carefully calibrated police operation, underway since... MORE

In the negotiations between Russia and Japan over the future of the four South Kuril Islands seized by Soviet troops at the close of World War II, the cast of characters continues to change but the results remain largely the same. That, at least, seemed... MORE

Against this background, and given that both sides have in general tried to keep secret their negotiations on the territorial row, it was perhaps no surprise that Japanese and Russian reports were not particularly clear or consistent in their descriptions of the weekend's talks. All... MORE