Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma hosted on September 10-11 a summit meeting of fourteen Baltic, Central European, Black Sea and South Caucasus countries. The presidents of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan joined Kuchma at the summit in... MORE

To balance their respective talks in Auckland with U.S. President Bill Clinton, both Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin used a consultation session of their own yesterday to reemphasize their common effort to limit U.S. international influence. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman... MORE

A busy weekend for Russian government leaders in Auckland, New Zealand, produced the expected allotment of declarations and rhetoric but apparently little in the way of substantive developments. The Russian itinerary in Auckland was topped by a meeting between Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his... MORE

While all signs suggested that today's Moscow blast was carried out in revenge for Russian military actions in the campaign against Islamist guerrillas in Dagestan, it is interesting to note that a report published today--prior to the latest blast--entertained the theory that the Islamist attack... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has ordered the creation of an operational antiterrorism staff in the wake of a bombing early this morning in Moscow. The blast, which took place at 5:00 AM local time, completely destroyed an eight-story apartment building on Kashirsky highway in the... MORE

It was in Georgia that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov presented an unreconstructed face of Russian policy in the South Caucasus. His visit marked, on the whole, a regress in Russian-Georgian relations. Ivanov resisted Tbilisi's demands for the gradual removal of Russia's four military base... MORE

While still in Baku, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sought to reassure Armenia of continued Russian support. He justified Russia's military alliance with and arming of Armenia, and the deployment of Russian troops there, by claiming that those are CIS arrangements and that they predate... MORE

Igor Ivanov's just-completed visit to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia--his first visit to those countries as foreign minister of Russia--seems to have signaled a number of tactical adjustments in Russian policy. The visit's aftermath confirms that impression. The adjustments appear designed to recoup some of Moscow's... MORE

It is hard to know why terrorists would target an ordinary apartment building in a working-class Moscow neighborhood. But the fact that officials are calling the explosion a terrorist bombing is--regardless of the accuracy of the claims--a measure of how politically charged Russia's atmosphere is... MORE

An explosion which destroyed a nine-story apartment building in southeast Moscow late on September 8 was probably a terrorist act, at least according to a number of Russian officials. No definitive official conclusion has been announced on the cause of the blast, which killed at... MORE