Is Islamic Fundamentalism a Threat in Kazakhstan? By Talgat Ismagambetov The seizure of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the influence of Islamic parties in Tajikistan have attracted attention to the issue of Islamic fundamentalism. Is the fear of religious extremism well founded where... MORE

Russia's Federal Border Guards By Stanislav Lunev The Federal Border Guards Service (FPS) is one of the few Russian government institutions which operate relatively successfully. Their job is to guard the borders of the Russian Federation; they also guard the external borders of most other... MORE

Krasnodar Krai: Nikolai Kondratenko's Regional Restoration By Arbakhan Magomedov Russia's economic geography and geopolitical situation changed dramatically after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Krasnodar Krai in the south is one of the regions that felt the impact most strongly. First and most important, the... MORE

The Fortnight in Review It was an exceptionally eventful fortnight in Moscow, as Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed his cabinet and maneuvering began over the naming of a new government. The Russian capital also played host to a pair of high-level diplomatic events: a tripartite... MORE

The President's Representatives: "Moscow's Men" in the Regions By Nikolai Petrov Until quite recently, when the governors of Russia's regions were still being appointed by the president, the governors were seen as "the president's men in the provinces." Now that they have all been elected... MORE

The Fortnight in Review The past fortnight was a busy one for Russian foreign policy makers. On March 10, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin arrived in Washington for several days of talks on trade and on Russian-U.S. disagreements over Moscow's cooperation with Iran. Then, on March... MORE

Islamic radicals in Dagestan By Igor Rotar Women wearing yashmaks have recently appeared on the streets of Dagestani cities. Locals call them "vakhabitki" ("Wahhabis"). When you enter the village of Karamakhi, one of the centers of Dagestani "Wahhabism," you feel as if you are in... MORE

Yuri Luzhkov as a "New Socialist" By Aleksandr Buzgalin In Russia, even the impossible is possible. It may seem bizarre to speak of an alliance between a movement that calls itself social-democratic and a nomenklatura technocrat who professes great-power, nationalist tendencies. In our country, however,... MORE

Rosneft privatization set to complete the carve-up of the Russian oil industry By Sergei Kolchin When he left office in 1996, former Russian fuel and energy minister Yuri Shafranik told an interviewer from Ekspert magazine that, in three years' time, only about half a dozen... MORE

Eastern and Western Ukraine in the mirror of public opinion By Volodymyr Zviglyanich A poll was taken in two of Ukraine's leading regions -- Galicia in the west and the Donbass in the east -- in December 1997 and January 1998. The aim was to... MORE