Moscow added insult to injury in its relations with Tokyo this week when it agreed to permit both North Korean and Ukrainian fishing boats to join those of South Korea in fishing the waters off the disputed Kuril Islands. The fishing dispute between Russia, South... MORE

The Russian government is liquidating the Interior Ministry structures created during the 1990s to combat organized crime. It will replace them with new ones. Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov announced yesterday (August 9) that these regional units, RUBOP (the Russian acronym for "regional department for the... MORE

On August 8 in Tiraspol, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Transdniester leader Igor Smirnov held their fourth negotiating session in the five months since Voronin took office in Chisinau as president. The experience of the first three rounds had led Voronin to declare, before the... MORE

On July 31, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin announced his decision to reduce Moldova's military manpower from 10,000 to 7,000 Army and Carabinieri troops. Simultaneously, the Moldovan government announced its intention to sell the largest still-serviceable chunks of its otherwise paltry, decrepit military hardware. And in... MORE

On Monday, in yet another reflection of the Bush administration's intensifying efforts to woo Moscow, the U.S. State Department hailed what it described as the Kremlin's effort to encourage dialogue between the two Koreas. In remarks that followed in the wake of this past weekend's... MORE

Analysts have also examined with a sometimes critical eye another of the agreements contained in this past weekend's Russian-North Korean joint statement--"one in which the two countries pledged to use all necessary efforts to create a rail transportation system connecting South and North Korea to... MORE

Russian troops blockaded Djohar (Grozny), the Chechen capital, earlier this week, in expectation that rebel forces would carry out attacks to mark the sixth anniversary of their storming of the capital. The expected attacks, however, failed to materialize. On August 6, 1996, rebel forces attacked... MORE

In November 1999, the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) required Russia to withdraw its arsenals and troops from Moldova in two phases. The heavy weaponry, as defined by the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), plus some other... MORE

The secessionist leadership is reacting with great unease to the scrapping and prospective withdrawal of combat hardware from Transdniester. Some in Tiraspol would like to get their hands on part of that weaponry. Others profess to want the tanks and armored vehicles converted for civilian... MORE

Despite occasional populist statements implying that Moldova can make it without international assistance, the communist-led Moldovan government has been saying all the right things during the visit from the IMF mission team that began on July 25. The mission, headed by Richard Haas, is surveying... MORE