Amid this diplomatic maneuvering, meanwhile, mixed signals were emanating from Moscow regarding the Kremlin's willingness to deal on the question of U.S. sought changes to the ABM treaty. Bush administration officials had professed after the June summit in Slovenia to be cheered by the unexpected... MORE

Last week's debate in the State Duma has been described as "a fresh episode in the comic opera about third gubernatorial terms" (Polit.ru, July 3). On July 4, the Duma voted to amend federal legislation on electing regional governors so as to reduce from sixty-nine... MORE

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is chipping away at the bilateral power-sharing treaties it signed during the Yeltsin era with forty-two of Russia's eighty-nine republics and regions (see the Monitor, July 3). The Putin leadership has made no secret of its dissatisfaction with this legacy of the... MORE

The victory of businessman Sergei Darkin in the June 17 run-off election for Primorsky Krai governor has not brought about the hoped-for stabilization of the situation there. In fact, a war is continuing in which the central action consists of a duel between Darkin and... MORE

Russia's military is fronting for the government and for the Kremlin itself in breaching the international obligation to liquidate the Gudauta base of the Russian airborne troops. Russian-Georgian intergovernmental negotiations over Gudauta failed two days before the July 1 final deadline--mandated by the Organization for... MORE

The head of Interpol, the international crime fighting organization, has stated publicly that Russia's criminal proceedings against Media-Most founder Vladimir Gusinsky are politically motivated. In a letter to a British law firm representing Gusinsky, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble described the case against the tycoon,... MORE

While the letter from Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble may help raise the spirits of Vladimir Gusinsky and his allies, it can do little to change the facts--first, that Media-Most and its outlets have in essence been taken over by the state-controlled Gazprom, and, second,... MORE

Russia's Duma adopted last week in its third and final reading a law on the procedure of accession to the Russian Federation of other states or parts thereof. Under the legislation, any state that is a subject of international law, or a territory of a... MORE

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld became the first top-level official of the Bush administration to hold talks with Ukraine's leaders in Kyiv. On July 4-5, NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson held another round of discussions in Kyiv on common strategic and political concerns.... MORE

From June 15 to June 30, British and Ukrainian troops conducted the Cossack Express-2001 exercise at Ukraine's Yavoriv training range. A British special-force battalion and a company-size Ukrainian logistics unit practiced offensive tactics, with search-and-destroy operations and live firing, in real-combat situations in the wooded... MORE