Will Moscow succeed in turning Georgia into the first casualty of Russian antiterrorist "assistance" to the United States? Mysteriously provoked armed clashes have escalated since October 7 in the Kodori Gorge, a no-man's land separating Georgian-controlled from Abkhaz-controlled territory, near the border with Russia. The... MORE

The first reaction to last week's crash of the Russian Tu-154 into the Black Sea was that it was a terrorist attack. The jet, flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk on October 4, killed all seventy-eight on board, most of whom were Israelis. Subsequent facts,... MORE

The Kremlin has continued to press its campaign to tar the Chechen rebels with the Osama bin Laden brush. Presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said yesterday that Russia's special services had information showing that "the links of the [Chechen] separatists with international Islamic terrorists is one... MORE

The Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper chamber, yesterday approved--by a vote of 103 to 29, with 9 abstentions--the Land Code passed last month by the State Duma, the lower chamber. The new code allows the sale of commercial and residential plots in cities and... MORE

Sputtering relations between Russia and Japan got a small boost this week when diplomats from the two countries reached a tentative agreement on a major fishing dispute and began firming up plans for a pair of summit meetings between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister... MORE

In yet another indication of the extent to which ties between Moscow and Washington have improved since the events of September 11, the Russian Foreign Ministry yesterday released a public statement welcoming what it described as the "positive mood of the U.S. administration with respect... MORE

All of this is relevant, of course, to the question of whether Russia and the United States (and Russia and the West) are now at the dawn of a new era, one in which the demands of the international battle against terrorism will prove compelling... MORE

Both Russian and Abkhazian authorities have alleged that a joint force of Chechen rebel fighters and Georgian guerrillas recently attempted to invade the self-styled republic of Abkhazia. According to Russian media reports, the Chechen raiders were headed by well-known field commander Ruslan Gelaev, who allegedly... MORE

On October 5 in Sofia, the presidents of the ten countries aspiring to NATO membership--the Vilnius Ten group--held a prescheduled summit, which focused on these countries' contribution to the common security of the West in an international environment defined by the antiterrorism campaign. The meeting... MORE

The Georgian economy is recovering from the 2000 drought, which last year led to a 15 percent drop in agricultural production and pushed GDP growth down to just 1.9 percent. GDP was up 5.2 percent in the first half of 2001, mainly because of strong... MORE