Russia's arms export establishment expects to earn more than US$4 billion in revenue this year, a figure that at least one report suggests is both a ten-year high and a sign that the country's struggling arms sector may be poised to recapture some of the... MORE

The news coming out of Russia and attitudes toward President Vladimir Putin both at home and abroad have been so positive of late that a rare negative prognosis about Russia's future stands out sharply. This is all the more so when such a prognosis is... MORE

Two Russian human rights activists have alleged that groups inside Russia's military and special services have engaged in various criminal activities in Chechnya, including the murder of suspected Chechen separatists, their relatives and sympathizers. Tat'yana Kasatkina and Oleg Orlov, both with the well-known Memorial human... MORE

On December 13 and 18, the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) resolved to discontinue the mandates of the OSCE missions in Estonia and Latvia, and to close the missions as of December 31. The two missions' chiefs, Doris... MORE

Despite more enthusiastic talk of an ever-strengthening partnership between Russia and NATO, not to mention the issuance of a final communique proclaiming that goal again, this week's NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels concluded on a note just discordant enough to raise new questions about... MORE

For the second time this month, President Vladimir Putin has spoken out on behalf of Russia's beleaguered small and medium-sized business sector. Opening a meeting yesterday of the State Council, the advisory body made up of regional leaders, the Russian president said that the fate... MORE

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation yesterday overturned a December 11 decision by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) that annulled the registration of Vyacheslav Shtyrov, head of the diamond monopoly ALROSA, as a candidate in the republic's presidential election, which... MORE

The implications of September 11 all but guarantee a jump start next year on construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Turkey) oil export pipeline, backed by the United States. International oil companies active in Azerbaijan and Western governments behind them had, even prior to September 11, come... MORE

The Russian government has continued to signal over the past several days that it intends not to let differences with the United States over ballistic missile defense undermine improved relations more generally or, especially, slow efforts by the two countries to hammer out an agreement... MORE

Chechen law enforcement officials have admitted that Russian forces carried out illegal arrests and engaged in looting and marauding during last week's "zachistka," or antiguerrilla sweep, in Argun, Chechnya's third largest city. Rostslav Timshin, Argun's prosecutor, said Monday (December 17) that an initial inquiry had... MORE