By Nabi Abdullaev "Wherever the press center is established, the information ends," grimly jokes Timur Djafarov, Interfax correspondent in Dagestan, sitting in the hall of the Makhachkala Provisional press center among the other journalists at the daily briefing on the joint federal forces fighting in... MORE

By Aleksandr Buzgalin Civil war among nomenklatura clans eclipses parliamentary elections Late autumn 1999 in Russia (and particularly in Moscow, the center of the political and economic life of the country) was marked by a sharp escalation in the battle between two "orders" within the... MORE

By V.A. Mironov On the eve of December's parliamentary elections, Russia's political landscape is becoming much more complicated. First, internal political tension is growing, which is natural enough given the uncertainty and unpredictability of the people's verdict on the electoral blocs, parties and candidates. Second,... MORE

By Valery Virkunen In the wake of major scandals involving the illegal movement of Russian capital abroad, the International Monetary Fund has postponed a decision on issuing Russia with the latest US$640 million credit. Many experts, both in Russia and abroad, are presenting this as... MORE

By Volodymyr Zviglyanich "Kuchma was sent by God"--Boris Berezovsky The second round of the recent presidential election in Ukraine saw victory for incumbent President Leonid Kuchma, as predicted by almost all opinion polls. With 58 percent of the vote, he defeated his communist rival Petro... MORE

By Mansur Khasanov We have had the honor of participating in a notable historic event--the determination of the date of the founding of Kazan, the capital of the Tatar Republic and one of Russia's and the world's largest and oldest cities. This problem, which has... MORE

By Elena Dikun At the end of October the leaders of the Fatherland--All Russia bloc (OVR) wrote an open letter to the Russian president demanding that Boris Yeltsin and his administration refrain from meddling in the electoral process. In making this demand, former Prime Minister... MORE

The alignment of political forces in Russia on the eve of the parliamentary elections

By Ilya Malyakin Any election campaign gives rise to a myriad of myths. The dominant myth at the 1993 State Duma elections concerned a radical change of regime and the need to defeat fascism (or, to be precise, the so-called "red-brown brigade"). This persisted in... MORE

By Vladimir Mironov As the summer 2000 election approaches, some nervousness is evident among the Russian political elite, because the prize is the highest public position in Russia. It is unlikely that the powers the head of state now enjoys will undergo any change before... MORE