In response to Berezovsky's open letter, FSB Director Vladimir Putin released a statement yesterday in which he said his agency "will not participate in any political games, no matter how many attempts are made to draw us into them." Putin wrote that his service is... MORE

Another crime-corruption scandal heated up Tuesday, this time involving accusations that senior officials in the Federal Security Service (FSB) have been involved in a host of crimes, including a plot to kill Boris Berezovsky, the tycoon and executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States.... MORE

Uzbekistan's apparent support for the recent, abortive rebellion in Tajikistan (see the Monitor, November 4,5,6,9,10) has backfired badly against Uzbek President Islam Karimov and his policies. The rebellion targeted not the Tajik government per se but its compromise with the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), a... MORE

On November 15 Georgia held its first local elections since independence. These were also the country's first electoral exercise since 1995. Internal political forces and international observers braced for a major test of the respective strengths of President Eduard Shevardnadze's governing Union of Citizens of... MORE

Schroeder told reporters yesterday that, during his brief, forty-minute meeting with Primakov, the two had discussed both how to improve conditions for foreign investors in Russia and how to make the government's economic plan acceptable to the world major financial institutions. Schroeder and Primakov also... MORE

On Sunday (November 15), units of Chechnya's Ministry of Shari State Security, numbering some 200 men, attempted to arrest Salman Raduev, the field commander and de facto leader of the opposition to President Aslan Maskhadov. Raduev, however, was not where they thought he was supposed... MORE

Recently elected German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, visiting Russia for the first time in that capacity, made clear yesterday that Bonn is both already looking beyond the Yeltsin era and intent on widening political contacts between the two countries. Schroeder, who held talks upon his arrival... MORE

In his interview published Tuesday (November 17) in "Trud," ex-Central Bank Director Sergei Dubinin went on the offensive, claiming that while he headed the Central Bank, he sent the Prosecutor General's Office information involving the funneling abroad of US$125 million from the now-defunct National Credit... MORE

The controversy surrounding charges that former Central Bank officials used insider information to make money on the now-collapsed treasury bill market is heating up. "Profil" magazine reported this week that some of Russia's largest banks, including SBS-Agro, Most-bank and BaltOneksim (an affiliate of Oneksimbank)--along with... MORE

Twenty-eight-year-old Finance Minister Mikhel Chkuaseli, one of Georgia's foremost reformers, resigned on November 14 after approximately one year in office. His resignation capped that of all of the Finance Ministry's deputy ministers and department chiefs at a tense cabinet session chaired by President Eduard Shevardnadze.... MORE