On the eve of and during the CIS summit, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Georgian Foreign Minister Irakly Menagarishvili and Azerbaijan's senior presidential adviser Vafa Guluzade reaffirmed that their respective countries will not prolong their participation in the CIS Collective Security Treaty. Yeltsin's senior adviser for... MORE

The presidents of the twelve member countries held the overdue CIS summit on April 2 in Moscow; as expected, they agreed to release Boris Berezovsky from the post of executive secretary in accordance to CIS rules and procedures, thus formalizing Russian President Boris Yeltsin's unilateral... MORE

Some pro-Kremlin observers see a connection between the Skuratov scandal and the KPRF's calls for military support to Serbia. Yevgeny Kiselev, the host of NTV's weekly news program "Itogi," charged several times last night that the KPRF was whipping up "anti-Western hysteria" and using the... MORE

The weekend bombing at the Federal Security Service (FSB) offices in Moscow took place against a background of growing political tensions. On April 2, President Boris Yeltsin's suspended Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov pending the outcome of an investigation into Skuratov's alleged abuse of his office.... MORE

The move against Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov--forced to resign in February but then reinstated by the Federation Council--came a day after Skuratov sent a report concerning money held by top officials in Swiss banks and approved new searches into alleged Kremlin corruption. Skuratov said that... MORE

A bomb blew up in the early hours yesterday morning at the public reception office of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in downtown Moscow. The blast was reportedly large, but given that it went off around 3 am, only two people were injured: A security... MORE

Already strained Russian-U.S. relations took yet another hit over the weekend when the United States announced on April 2 that it was leveling sanctions on three Russian organizations accused of supplying "lethal military equipment" to Syria. A U.S. State Department spokesman said that the Clinton... MORE

On April 3, Russian officials stepped up their criticism of NATO following air strikes launched against targets in Belgrade itself. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the strikes "barbarous" and warned of "grave consequences" if Russian citizens were wounded in future air attacks. A ministry statement... MORE

Russia continued over the weekend to denounce NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia, while the Kremlin stepped up efforts to schedule a meeting of world leaders to discuss the crisis in the Balkans. As a Russian naval reconnaissance ship steamed toward the Mediterranean, military and political... MORE

Effective today, Ukraine is discontinuing imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan because it can no longer afford to pay for them. Prime Minister Valery Pustovoytenko announced the decision during a March 30 cabinet meeting. A Ukrainian-Turkmen agreement, signed in December 1998 in Tashkent by Presidents... MORE