Relations between Russia and NATO hit yet another speed bump yesterday when a meeting of the Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council was postponed without explanation. NATO and Russian officials had been scheduled to hold talks in Brussels on the Kosovo peacekeeping mission and, possibly, on renewing... MORE

Pasko's tribulations come in the context of a broader effort by Russian military and security service authorities to silence and intimidate those who have dared to expose the health and environmental dangers posed by the Soviet navy's nuclear legacy. Another Russian naval officer--retired Captain Aleksandr... MORE

The long ordeal of a Russian naval journalist accused of passing military secrets to the Japanese came to a happy conclusion yesterday when a military court in Vladivostok found him innocent of treason and espionage charges. Captain Grigory Pasko was, however, found guilty by the... MORE

The Kyiv meeting took stock of a steady decline in Ukrainian-Russian trade as a built-in trend, which Russia's financial crisis has only served to accentuate. The bilateral turnover has slumped from US$15 billion in 1997 to US$12.5 billion in 1998 to an estimated US$4.5 billion... MORE

Ukraine's overall indebtedness to Russia is roughly estimated at US$3 billion, with no agreement on the precise obligations of various Ukrainian debtors and no clear concept of debt servicing and reimbursement. During Stepashin's visit, the sides continued to differ significantly over the size of Ukraine's... MORE

Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin's July 15-18 visit to Ukraine occasioned an across-the-board review of Ukrainian-Russian relations ahead of Ukraine's presidential election. Stepashin floated two trial balloons from the outset. In the meeting with Kuchma, he called for changes to Ukraine's legislation, to make Ukrainian-Russian... MORE

The Russian army's drug problem, not surprisingly, has reportedly also contributed to a rapid increase in the number of Russian servicemen believed to be HIV-positive. But it is difficult to ascertain the scope of the army's AIDS problem. Defense Ministry officials are reportedly reluctant to... MORE

With regard to drug use, the army appears not to be merely the victim of broader societal ills, as the military leadership seems sometimes to suggest. Indeed, the armed forces may in fact be a breeding ground for drug addiction and drug related crime. Studies... MORE

In the course of an interview given recently to the press, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev described the country's armed forces as "combat ready, controllable and capable of ensuring the military security of the country." Sergeev attributed these positive developments to the defense reforms adopted... MORE

As the clans battle on, a question increasingly on the minds of political observers and players is what role, if any, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov might play in the parliamentary elections scheduled for this December and the presidential election set for next year. Moscow... MORE