The power struggle between Karabakh president Arkady Gukasian and military leader Lieutenant-General Samvel Babayan has turned into a protracted standoff. Gukasian triggered the standoff on June 24 by dismissing the pro-Babayan prime minister Jirair Poghosian's government, including Babayan as defense minister. Gukasian then appointed a... MORE

The contradictions between Most business empire founder Vladimir Gusinsky and the Kremlin have apparently turned into a real war. Russian news agencies reported yesterday that the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the tax police have begun to audit structures belonging to the Media Most holding--which... MORE

The Soviet navy began dumping large amounts of liquid nuclear wastes into the oceans in the 1950s, and disposal by this method by the Pacific Fleet in the Sea of Japan reportedly reached its peak in the mid-1980s. The practice attracted major international attention in... MORE

Developments in Russia's Far East this week focused attention once again on both the Russian Pacific Fleet's nuclear waste disposal problems and the lengths to which authorities are apparently prepared to go to keep that information from the public. On July 13, reports out of... MORE

A special, "informal" Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting on military transparency, held on July 13 in Vienna, dealt with the problem of Russian forces in Moldova. Russian troops and arsenals have been unlawfully stationed in that country since 1991, a situation... MORE

Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliev's successful medical recovery and discrete overtures toward the opposition seem to enhance the prospects for stability and incremental political reforms in the country. Barely one month ago, Aliev's condition--in the wake of open-heart surgery in the United States--had generated active speculation... MORE

British Petroleum-Amoco has announced a "world-class gas discovery" at Shah-Deniz, the Azerbaijani offshore deposit which had until recently been deemed to contain mostly oil. Analysis of the first test well has led to the conclusion that Shah-Deniz contains--in addition to oil--between 400 and 700 billion... MORE

The Mabetex case is apparently not the only Russian target of a Swiss criminal investigation. Swiss police at the beginning of this month raided several firms in Lausanne in connection with an investigation into suspected fraud and moneylaundering. While the Swiss have thus far not... MORE

The general prosecutor in Geneva, Switzerland has opened an investigation into alleged moneylaundering by Russians, with those being investigated including Pavel Borodin (the Kremlin administration's property manager and a close associate of President Boris Yeltsin), Borodin's wife and twenty-two others, among whom, reportedly, are other... MORE

In a move which has already generated some criticism in Congress, the Clinton administration has reportedly agreed to grant Russia an increase in the number of U.S. commercial satellite launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Administration officials said this week that the number of... MORE