On September 28 in Moscow, a regular meeting of the prime ministers of CIS member countries approved only miserly funding for the CIS Antiterrorism Center (ATC). Russia's President Vladimir Putin opened the session with a plea for funds, particularly in support of the ATC: "The... MORE

Meeting in Moscow on September 28, the CIS member countries' prime ministers disagreed with Russia and among themselves on the two main items on the agenda. Russia won on the first dispute and lost on the second. A Russian-drafted political document appealed to the world,... MORE

New polling data suggests that Russian public opinion may be turning against the U.S.-led campaign against international terrorism. In a poll taken by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) on September 24, 72 percent of the 1,600 respondents said that the... MORE

President Vladimir Putin's deadline for Chechen rebels to contact federal officials to begin discussing a procedure for disarmament passed yesterday, with apparently few rebels meeting it. On the contrary, rebels carried out various attacks, including the murder of Sheikhi Dubaev, a close associate of the... MORE

Within forty-eight hours of the terrorist assault on the United States, and a day after NATO had invoked its Article Five, the Baltic states announced their willingness to act as de facto members of the alliance, with all the obligations and risks involved. The ensuing... MORE

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) may be on the verge of reintroducing the death penalty, a punishment abolished last year under pressure from the Council of Europe and human rights activists. At the conclusion of a September 19 meeting, Rada faction leaders decided to reintroduce the... MORE

Popular Ukraine's former Premier Viktor Yushchenko has determined the make-up of his bloc Our Ukraine in the parliamentary elections of March 2002. The moderate right-wing opposition will form the bloc's core. Yushchenko also hopes, with some assistance from the presidential administration, to cajole also some... MORE

Russia has remained a key player over the past few days in the intense diplomatic maneuvering that has accompanied the Bush administration's efforts to construct an international antiterrorist coalition. But even as President Vladimir Putin impressed German audiences with his diplomatic performance during a visit... MORE

The seventy-two-hour deadline President Vladimir Putin gave Chechen rebels to lay down their arms is set to expire at 9 pm this evening, local time. There are few signs that the rebels intend to meet the Russian president's deadline, which he gave on September 24... MORE

President Vladimir Putin's declaration of support for the U.S.-led campaign is clearly causing some Western leaders to re-evaluate their governments' stance vis-a-vis Russia's military campaign in Chechnya. Both German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday stressed the need to "evaluate things... MORE