With less than two weeks to go before a long-awaited summit meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, Russian and U.S. diplomats went into high gear this week in an effort to further negotiations both on a possible missile defense deal and on... MORE

Russia's State Duma voted yesterday to partially strip Vladimir Golovlyov, a dissident member of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) and a leader of the opposition Liberal Russia movement, of his immunity from criminal prosecution. Earlier this week, the Prosecutor General's Office had asked the... MORE

Dzhabrail Khachilaev, a Dagestani businessman and brother of former State Duma deputy Nadirshakh Khachilaev, has been arrested in connection with the murders this week of a deputy speaker in Dagestan's parliament and of a local banker. On October 31, Arsen Kammaev, the deputy head of... MORE

On October 25, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed legislation in a vote of 232-2 legalizing private ownership of land in Ukraine. The leftist factions--the Communists, the Socialists and the Progressive Socialists--did not register for the vote in protest against exposing the agriculture to the "capitalist... MORE

In a move that has special significance for Ukraine, one of its numerous pro-presidential parties--the Democratic Union (DU), composed of oligarchs and top bureaucrats--has replaced its chairman. On the exit ramp is Oleksandr Volkov, an oligarch and long-time aide to President Leonid Kuchma. On the... MORE

Kremlin efforts to reform Russia's struggling, Soviet-era defense industrial complex picked up speed on October 29, as an unprecedented joint meeting of the country's State Council and Security Council approved a series of guidelines--or "fundamentals"--aimed at streamlining the sector and improving its performance. This week's... MORE

Something very much resembling a purge or house-cleaning of Yeltsin-era top government officials appears to be underway. The Prosecutor General's Office, which recently launched several criminal probes into corruption within the Railways Ministry (MPS) (see the Monitor, October 23), has reportedly similarly targeted the Emergency... MORE

The extent of Tajikistan's cooperation--current and intended--with the United States cannot yet be judged from the available information on the antiterrorist campaign. In the wake of September 11, Dushanbe repeatedly declared that it would take its guidance from Moscow with regard to possible use of... MORE

The sense that relations between China and Russia have fallen into an uncertain state in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States was reinforced over the weekend during a surprisingly low-profile visit to Moscow by Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao.... MORE

The trial of the men accused of blowing up apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in the fall of 1999 resumed this week in Stavropol after a two-week break. The five defendants--Muratbi Bairamukov, Aslan and Murat Bastanovy, Muratbi Tuganbaev and Taikan Frantsuzov, all of whom... MORE