This week, in addition to the drama surrounding Yukos and its $7 billion tax bill, Moscow has been in the grip of a banking crisis. Panicking depositors have been cashing out their savings, causing long lines, and threatening the stability of several banks. The main... MORE

The Yukos affair began on July 2, 2003, with the arrest of director Platon Lebedev. Exactly one year later, Russian police marked the anniversary with a dramatic raid on the company's downtown Moscow headquarters. At 2:00 p.m. on Saturday July 3, some 50 police and... MORE

At its Istanbul summit last month, the 26-member Atlantic Alliance announced its newfound interest in the strategic regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Although the unveiled measures aimed at engaging the region have turned out to be relatively modest, NATO's designs appear to have... MORE

Yuri Shchekochikhin, a State Duma deputy and veteran investigative journalist, died under mysterious circumstances one year ago, and Novaya gazeta, the publication where he was a deputy editor, devoted eight articles to him in its July 1 issue. Shchekochikhin fell ill just prior to a... MORE

From June 24 to 26, a group of specialists gathered in Zurich at the Center for Security Studies, Swiss Federal Technology Institute, to discuss the role of business in Russian foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that economic strength is key to preserving... MORE

July 1 was a bad day for Yukos, and perhaps the beginning of the end for the embattled oil company. First, three court bailiffs, accompanied by five guards in camouflage uniforms, arrived at the company's Moscow headquarters to inform Yukos that it had five days... MORE

In June 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency Chairman Mohammad El Baradei announced that the Russian-built reactor at Bushehr was not the focus of Iran's nuclear program (Yahoo.com, June 30). This statement naturally pleased Russia, which can now state that its program of nuclear assistance to... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin turned down NATO's invitation to attend the alliance's recent Istanbul summit. A series of insistent, public entreaties proved counterproductive, tempting the Kremlin to ask a high political price for Putin's attendance. He wanted NATO to call for ratification of the 1999-adapted... MORE

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Interfax news agency on June 29 that Russia "does not have any intention of helping Iraq set up its army." Lavrov was speaking in Istanbul following the NATO-Russia Council meeting that took place on the sidelines of the NATO... MORE

According to the Russian Statistical Yearbook for 2000, Russia's permanent population (i.e. citizens plus legal residents from other CIS republics) decreased from 147 million people at the end of 1988 to 145.6 million at the end of 1999. During the same period, the number of... MORE