In yet another indication of the degree to which Kremlin decisionmaking remains a black box, the Russian press over the last twenty-four hours has been filled with reports about several personnel changes at the highest levels of the government, while the Kremlin itself is denying... MORE

Even as Russia's top brass has seethed over the minor role which Moscow is playing in the Kosovo peacekeeping force, Russian diplomats and other political leaders have kept up a steady stream of invective aimed at the alliance for its alleged failures and misdeeds in... MORE

Despite assurances voiced in Singapore and Washington this week that Moscow and the West have managed to put the Kosovo conflict behind them, tensions continue to fester on a number of related issues. With regard to the NATO-led peacekeeping operation in Kosovo, for example, a... MORE

On July 14 a Tashkent court sentenced opposition activist Mahbuba Kasymova to five years' in prison for having sheltered Rovshan Hamidov, a prominent militant of the Warriors of Islam, in her apartment over an extended period of time. The United States-based Human Rights Watch has... MORE

Hryhory Surkis, the energy and media oligarch, sponsor of the United Social-Democrat Party (USDP) and a presidential loyalist, has suffered a major public defeat in the dispute over the May 30 Kyiv mayoral election (see the Monitor, June 2). The presidentially appointed head of the... MORE

Syamyon Sharetsky, chairman of the legitimate Belarusan parliament--disbanded by the autocratic president but recognized internationally--has been in neighboring Lithuania since July 22 and plans to continue his role in Belarus from there. His political ally, and predecessor as pro-democracy parliamentary chairman, Stanislau Shushkevich accompanied him... MORE

Yuri Chaika, the first deputy prosecutor general who has served as acting prosecutor general since the suspension of Yuri Skuratov earlier this year, was today transferred to a new post--fist deputy secretary of the Security Council, President Boris Yeltsin's powerful advisory body. The move is... MORE

The top editors and other top officials of Vladimir Gusinsky's Media Most group held a press conference in Moscow yesterday, during which they continued their attack on Kremlin administration chief Aleksandr Voloshin and his putative patron, the tycoon Boris Berezovsky. One of the participants, NTV... MORE

This week's decision to dismantle the UNSCOM lab in Baghdad represents only one minor skirmish in what is almost certain to be a long war. Although they have reportedly narrowed their differences somewhat, Security Council members are still divided over competing draft resolutions which would... MORE

Russia suffered a minor diplomatic setback yesterday when an international team of arms experts destroyed samples of VX nerve gas and other toxic materials left in a UN laboratory in Baghdad. The arms destruction operation, which brought to an end a long and acrimonious dispute... MORE