By Taras Kuzio In 2000 a constitutional crisis in Moldova pitted the executive branch against the legislature. It was resolved when the country became the first full parliamentary democracy in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Moldovan President Petru Lucinschi remained in his post until the... MORE

By Aleksandr Tsipko It has long been held that the Achilles heel of the Putin regime is the contradiction between his strong and effective policies and the weakness of the economy. Vladimir Putin has not been able to provide the necessary economic base for his... MORE

By A.I. Kolganov The development of Argentina's economy over the last ten years has been reminiscent, in many respects, of similar events that have occurred in the course of Russia's market reforms. There are undoubtedly major differences between the economies of the two countries. And... MORE

By Aleksandr Buzgalin In the final years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the so-called "antiglobalist" movement has begun to attract worldwide attention. Born in the mid-1990s after Seattle, Prague and Genoa, it became a powerful factor in the social and... MORE

By Elena Chinyaeva In late January the television channel TV-6 was taken off the airwaves after the Press Ministry implemented a court order that the channel's parent company be liquidated, which essentially robbed its owners of their assets. This took place almost two years after... MORE

By Nabi Abdullaev Over the past decade, contract killing and alcohol-fuelled slayings have become an everyday routine in Russia, leading many to look back nostalgically to the relatively crime-free days of the Soviet Union. Suicide rates and accidental deaths have also skyrocketed over the same... MORE

By Mikhail Zherebyatev Previous attempts to introduce the concept of community service as an alternative to military service were beset by failure, in both the Soviet Union and Russia. The first bill was drafted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR back in early 1990,... MORE

By Sergei Kolchin The management changes that took place in Gazprom in 2001--with Aleksei Miller replacing Rem Vyakhirev in the corporation's top job--were just the first of a number of major changes affecting the future of this, the biggest player in Russia's economy. And if... MORE

By Nabi Abdullaev   Reports that hundreds of Chechen rebels and even one of their prominent leaders, Emir Khattab, have been fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan have appeared in the international media throughout the U.S.-led military campaign. These reports have been sketchy and poorly... MORE

By Taras Kuzio The trend towards an authoritarian, corporatist state in Ukraine has been particularly evident since 1997 with Ukraine (and Russia) regressing democratically.[1] Ukraine's regime has been described by Ukrainian and Western scholars as a "delegative democracy,"[2] with an inactive population's only participation in... MORE