The Estonian government has decided to dissolve the Special Operations Group (SOG), a small and secretive security unit of the armed forces. The decision follows an armed robbery and shootout in which three SOG soldiers were involved. Two earlier holdups are now also blamed on... MORE

There has been another attack on police personnel in Dagestan, in the Kazbekovsk region bordering Chechnya. After a rather protracted battle, one of the estimated three dozen attackers was killed and three policemen were injured. The guerrillas retreated after Russian helicopters fired rockets on them.... MORE

While the Kosovo peace negotiations dominated headlines in Russia and elsewhere this past weekend, Moscow was also the scene of high-level talks between Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and top Russian officials. Komura's May 28-30 visit was aimed at reviving flagging efforts by Moscow and... MORE

The frenzy of rumors in Russia that The Family (Yeltsin's inner circle) is planning on sticking around are, at a minimum, in the interest of those groups and individuals who feel that they lost out in the recent cabinet reshuffle. NTV television, controlled by MOST... MORE

According to another line of thinking, the Kremlin is indeed planning to hold the scheduled June 2000 presidential vote. To this end, it has set its allies in Sergei Stepashin's newly formed government and in other state bodies the task of establishing a monopoly over... MORE

But for all these positive developments, there were also unmistakable indications yesterday that Moscow and the West have not fully worked out their differences over Kosovo. Perhaps the most glaring sign of discord involves the command structure of the peacekeeping forces to be deployed in... MORE

The idea that President Boris Yeltsin--or, at any rate, the political regime he heads--will remain in power after next year's scheduled presidential elections is gaining more and more adherents. While some observers have predicted that Yeltsin will win a de facto third term in power... MORE

Serbia's parliament today reportedly backed a Kosovo peace deal. Word of this development came, not from an official announcement, but from comments made to the press following the session by various deputies, some of whom are quoted as saying that the plan submitted by President... MORE

Special envoys from Russia and the European Union headed to Belgrade yesterday for talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in what some observers described as the most hopeful diplomatic move on Kosovo to occur since the middle of March. The departure of former Russian Prime... MORE

The United Tajik Opposition (UTO) yesterday suspended its participation in the Attestation Commission, a joint government-opposition body mandated to oversee the "integration" of the opposition guerrillas into government forces. That integration constitutes the essence of the military dimension of the 1997 peace agreements. Their political... MORE