Recently released data on foreign trade developments show that the country's enormous trade surplus has begun to narrow in the first half of 2001. The US$27.6 billion surplus on merchandise trade in January-June 2001 was US$1.4 billion less than that earned in the same period... MORE

On July 30-August 3, a special parliamentary session debated and approved the oil supply agreement recently signed by Williams International--the American operator of Lithuania's Mazeikiai oil complex--with Russia's Yukos company. The parliamentary action should lay to rest one of the most contentious political issues in... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin used a speech on his country's main naval holiday, which is celebrated on July 29, to rekindle visions of the fleet's former glory. Despite the Russian leader's rhetoric, however, the holiday served more to highlight the navy's current abject state and... MORE

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov met with his ministers yesterday to discuss the economic results of the first half of 2001 and to set goals for the second half. Various cabinet members, including Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and Labor Minister Aleksandr Pochinok... MORE

The presidents of ten CIS countries--all but Georgia and Turkmenistan--held an informal, "no-neckties" summit on August 1-2 in Russia's Black Sea resort Sochi. By common decision, the presidents gathered without a prepared agenda or documents to be signed, and did not issue a concluding joint... MORE

In his remarks to journalists during the summit, Putin offered a glimpse into the militarized mindset that often informs Moscow's approach to the CIS. "The economic upswing in Russia and other CIS countries requires corresponding efforts by all of us together to strengthen cooperation in... MORE

With greater emphasis than he previously had, Putin again described subgroups within the CIS as legitimate, provided that they prove useful for the CIS as a whole and remain open for new member countries. Listing the Collective Security Treaty (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and... MORE

A wide-ranging draft plan to restructure and revitalize Russia's ailing defense industrial sector apparently won formal approval last week, but at least one source suggested that the blanket of official secrecy thrown over government deliberations of the plan could not hide the fact that it... MORE

A top Russian official seems to have gone out of his way to quash speculation that Moscow plans to negotiate with the Chechen separatists or has already started doing so. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov sounded the hard line yesterday, telling journalists that all Chechen "bandits"... MORE

On July 31, an armed Chechen seized a bus carrying forty-one people near the town of Neveinnomyssk in Stavropol Krai and then took it to the town of Mineral'nye Vody. The hijacker--whom the authorities later identified as Sultan-Said Idiyev, an ethnic Chechen and member of... MORE