In a televised interview on an NTV Sunday morning talk show, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the Russian government would be prepared to fulfill its obligation under the 1956 Joint Soviet-Japanese Declaration. This declaration, ratified by the USSR Supreme Soviet, called for a... MORE

On December 3-4 Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a summit with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already gone to India to lay the groundwork for this summit (Itar-Tass, October 9). Putin's agenda in India comprises security and economics. Although... MORE

On November 9 and 16, the OSCE's Joint Consultative Group (JCG), meeting in Vienna, witnessed Russia's overt repudiation of its obligation to withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. The 30-country JCG deals with issues related to the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe... MORE

Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, met with senior NATO personnel on November 15, taking part in working meetings aimed at resolving issues relating to interoperability between Russian and NATO forces. At SHAPE HQ Mons, Belgium, he met... MORE

On November 11, the Kremlins press service announced that the Russia-EU summit, originally scheduled for that day but abruptly postponed at Moscow's request, would now take place on November 25 in The Hague. Officially, Moscow blamed the decision on the EU's failure to install a... MORE

President Vladimir Putin's increasingly outspoken economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, has called the legal onslaught against Yukos politically motivated and said it should stop. Speaking at a Moscow press conference organized by the RIA Novosti new agency, Illarionov said the "most reasonable thing" would be to... MORE

The simmering crisis in the Karachaevo-Cherkessia region of the North Caucasus has turned violent. Relatives of the seven disappeared shareholders in the local Kavkaztsement factory, tired of waiting for their loved ones' murderers to be punished, have seized the government headquarters in the republic capital.... MORE

Thousands-strong columns marched through all major Russian cities on November 7, celebrating the Great Socialist Revolution of 1917, perhaps for the last time. The State Duma is due to approve legislation that would cancel this holiday and introduce another one on November 4, marking the... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin has staked a great deal of his political credibility on stabilizing war-torn Chechnya, as underscored by his recent appointment of Colonel-General Alexei Maslov as the new Commander of the Ground Forces. Putin told Maslov at a meeting in the Kremlin on... MORE

As President George W. Bush anxiously awaited the outcome of the Ohio vote count, two of his most prominent fans -- Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi -- were rooting for him in the Kremlin. Bush's victory marked a high point of the Italian Prime Minister's... MORE