Opinion surveys suggest that the newly created, leftist Labor Party will take first place in Lithuania's parliamentary elections on October 10, though it will fall short of gaining a majority. The party leader, Russian-born oligarch Viktor Uspaskikh, will claim the post of prime minister, but... MORE

Lithuania is headed for parliamentary elections on October 10, with some runoffs continuing on October 24. For the third time in less than two years, populist forces are strongly challenging the country's parliamentary democracy, its recently completed market economic system and, indirectly, its full-fledged Western... MORE

On the third anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych remains convinced that his country should take an active role in combating terrorism (UNIAN, September 11). However, Yanukovych's call to combat "terrorism" has a different domestic meaning, as Ukrainian leaders equate... MORE

With Ukraine's presidential poll just a month away, the Kremlin propaganda machine is working at full speed. As one group of Moscow spin doctors accuse the West of interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs, the others are aggressively peddling their vision of "European integration," where Ukraine... MORE

Even as President Vladimir Putin is liquidating Russia's federal system, Russia and the OSCE's American-led Moldova Mission persist with a U.S. State Department-approved project to appoint Russia as the main "guarantor" of a new Moldova-Trans-Dniester "federation." Moldova's appeals to ostracize Trans-Dniester's Russian-installed dictatorship and to... MORE

Although Ukraine's presidential elections are still six weeks away, last week the authorities hinted at two methods it could use to secure the election of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. First, officials could deploy all available "state administrative resources" to win additional percentage points for Yanukovych.... MORE

The joint parliamentary election and referendum campaign in Belarus is well under way. Last week, President Alexander Lukashenka outlined his platform to students at the Brest State Technical University. He has developed three main themes for the campaign: the nature of the presidency; the economic... MORE

Confirming the growing Russianization of Ukrainian security policy, Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk was dismissed on September 22. Marchuk had only been appointed to this post in June 2003. His removal resembled that of the pro-Western Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk in October 2000. Tarasiuk claims that... MORE

As in many post-communist states, Ukrainian authorities control "loyal nationalist" groups. Paradoxically, although presidential front-runner Viktor Yushchenko is regularly assailed as a "nationalist," his Our Ukraine bloc has only one member that is nationalist: the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. Yet the recent wave of terrorist... MORE

Leading opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko is the target of a range of dirty tricks intended to defeat his bid to succeed Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. As Russian political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in Ukrayinska pravda on September 10, "The basic strategy of the outside... MORE