Until July 16, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had every reason to believe that his plan for moving back to the Kremlin for the third presidential term is not only unassailable inside the country, but also perfectly fine with Russia’s key international partners. There is no... MORE

The nuclear power plant project in Lithuania is a regional, not merely a national project (“Lithuania Chooses Hitachi-General Electric to Build Nuclear Power Plant,” EDM, July 19). The Visaginas project is intended to meet electricity demand on a region-wide basis. Its commerciality will be optimal... MORE

A ground-breaking agreement between Moscow and Berne will boost Russian mountain warfare capabilities, and has implications for security in the North Caucasus. The bilateral defense deal also plays a less well publicized role in addressing shortcomings in the transformation of the Russian armed forces. On... MORE

On July 15 Russian investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin stated that the militant group under the command of Islam Uspakhadzhiev (aka the Shalazhi Jamaat, after the village of Shalazhi in Chechnya’s Urus Martan district) was behind the murder two years ago of the well-known Chechen... MORE

The Russian government has reiterated its pledges to spend billions of rubles in government funding to speed up the development of the country’s Far East in a bid to create a gateway to the booming Asia-Pacific Region. Russia hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit... MORE

For several generations of Americans, December 7 was a day on which to pause and think about the destiny of the nation. For one generation the remarks of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the aftermath of the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, “Yesterday, Sunday, December 7,... MORE

Insurgency-related violence was reported in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia this past week. Unidentified attackers shot and killed an inspector with the West Caspian water resources protection service in Dagestan yesterday (July 14). In the incident, which took place in the village of Nechaevka in the republic’s... MORE

On July 14, Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller and RWE president Juergen Grossmann signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would, if implemented, open a new stage of Gazprom’s expansion into Germany and Europe (Interfax, DPA, Gazprom and RWE press releases, July 14).The Essen-based RWE (Rheinisch-Westfaelisches... MORE

The Russian government is still looking for the ways to solve the armed resistance problem in the North Caucasus. The government, however, makes no attempt to understand the core issues of the region, seeking instead a quick fix using administrative methods and force. This time,... MORE

Russia has been hit by a number of manmade disasters. The worst is the sinking on July 10, of an old Bulgaria riverboat on the Volga River in Tatarstan. The Bulgaria was built in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and was rundown by age and neglect with... MORE