A much anticipated and, from a geopolitical perspective, potentially significant summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin is scheduled to kick off in Moscow this Sunday (July 15). As officials from both countries have long made clear, the highlight of... MORE

The Kremlin is pushing for reforms of Russia's judicial system that would reduce the Soviet-era powers of prosecutors, introduce jury trials and protect suspects in criminal cases from police brutality. It could be argued, however, that other parts of the law enforcement system are moving... MORE

Colonel Yury Budanov, the Russian tank commander on trial in Rostov-on-Don for murdering a young Chechen woman, Elza Kungaeva, has been moved to Moscow, where he will undergo testing at the Serbsky psychiatric hospital. This third round of such testing was ordered because psychiatrists who... MORE

A NATO naval squadron, the strongest to visit any of the three Baltic states since 1991, laid anchor at Klaipeda on July 6 and conducted exercises in Lithuania's territorial waters through July 12. Seven frigates--one each from the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Holland, Spain... MORE

Besides drugs, the Tajik authorities are now turning to labor force traffic as a possible source of income for themselves and the state budget--those two ledgers of one and the same accounting sheet in Dushanbe. As with drugs, the main market for Tajik hired labor... MORE

Less than two weeks after they were passed on to him by the Russian Federation Council without discussion or a vote, President Vladimir Putin yesterday signed into a law a pair of bills that, if the country's powerful nuclear energy lobby gets its druthers, will... MORE

Gazprom-Media chief Alfred Kokh has ruled out the possibility of selling a 9.5-percent stake in Media-Most's Radio Ekho Moskvy to the station's staff. Kokh rescinded the offer after talks with Aleksei Venediktov, Radio Ekho Moskvy's chief editor, broke down, with both sides accusing each other... MORE

General Vladimir Moltenskoi, the acting commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, has reportedly admitted that Russian troops committed "large-scale crimes" while carrying out "zachistki"--cleansing or mopping-up operations--in the villages of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya, along Chechnya's border with Ingushetia. Moltenskoi was quoted as condemning those... MORE

The Russian government and a small but seemingly influential pressure group in Lithuania are moving in tandem to thwart a crucial oil supply agreement that has the support of President Valdas Adamkus and of Western-oriented political forces. The documents were signed in mid-June by the... MORE

The Bush administration's rehabilitation of cooperative relations with Russia has continued in recent days, as U.S. President George W. Bush and top administration officials have followed up the friendly June 16 Russian-U.S. summit with fresh indications of their eagerness to tighten ties with Moscow. The... MORE