Georgian-Abkhaz tensions are being artificially exacerbated by criminal incidents in an Abkhaz-controlled district. On July 9, unidentified gunmen who are presumed to be Georgian guerrillas killed four and kidnapped six residents of the Gulripshi district. The four dead are ethnic Armenians, as are possibly some... MORE

In his first press conference since becoming Russia's head of state a year and a half ago, President Vladimir Putin yesterday spent an hour and a half fielding questions from among the 500 domestic and foreign journalists in attendance. It was on the whole a... MORE

Vladimir Putin's press conference yesterday (July 18) also touched on more controversial themes. A BBC correspondent, for example, asked the Russian president about an "information security doctrine" promulgated by the Kremlin last year, which, among other things, charged that unnamed countries were trying "to infringe... MORE

The case of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found last November near Kyiv, remains unsolved, and the death toll among Ukrainian journalists continues to mount. Ihor Aleksandrov, director of the television company TOR in Slovyansk, Donetsk region, was beaten on July 3... MORE

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin this week signed a much-anticipated Russian-Chinese friendship treaty aimed at further solidifying the "strategic partnership" the two countries established several years ago. While clearly a significant document, the new pact appears nonetheless to highlight continuing limitations in Russian-Chinese relations... MORE

Oleg Lurye, the well-known investigative reporter for the biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has written an article in the paper's latest issue alleging that Anatoly Chubais, currently head of United Energy Systems (UES) and a leader of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), and Alfred Kokh,... MORE

Both Gazprom-Media and the journalists of Radio Ekho Moskvy, the last remaining major independent outlet of the Media-Most group, have approved an arrangement to divvy some 85 percent of the station's shares between them. Gazprom-Media, which recently became the radio station's majority shareholder, will sell... MORE

On July 9 in Geneva, Armenian and Turkish public figures established the Reconciliation Commission, an unofficial body of distinguished representatives of civil society, the first structured initiative of its type by Armenians and Turks. Under its published terms of reference, the commission will seek to... MORE

On July 13, a panel of the Supreme Court of Tajikistan sentenced two Dushanbe Islamic Institute students to death for having firebombed a Korean-sponsored Christian missionary church in Dushanbe. Ten church members were killed and more than thirty were injured in that attack last October.... MORE

The reshuffle atop Russia's defense hierarchy has continued in recent weeks, as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has removed several more senior officers with close ties to his predecessor, Marshal Igor Sergeev, and replaced them with people more to his own liking. Three of these... MORE