On March 10, Russia and Georgia held their first meeting in a new round of negotiations over Russia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) bid. Maxim Medvedkov, Russia’s chief negotiator, and Tamar Kovziridze, the Georgian prime minister’s senior aide and long time negotiator over WTO issues, held... MORE

The North Caucasus is increasingly reminiscent of the zone of military conflict where the situation is gradually approaching a critical point. News stories coming from the region – even those covered by official Russian media, the task of which is by no means to depict... MORE

President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin publicly clashed over Russia’s response to the Western-led military action in Libya. This is the first major open rift in the tandem that has ruled Russia since 2008 and it may be much more important than the... MORE

The muftis of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and North Ossetia were elected on March 15, 16 and 17. Russian experts on Islam have started questioning the official policy on Islamic bureaucracies and are now calling for their “modernization,” while the government continues its efforts to control the... MORE

On March 21, at his Novo Ogaryovo residence, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to negotiate German Wintershall’s accession to Gazprom’s South Stream project. Wintershall, a gas producer and trader, is the fully owned gas subsidiary of... MORE

Shortly after her recent visit to Washington, Kyrgyzstan’s President Roza Otunbayeva announced that two military training centers funded by the US and Russia will soon be opened in Kyrgyzstan (www.akipress.kg, March 15).According to the Kyrgyz president, the US center might be located in Batken oblast,... MORE

The expanded session of the Russian defense ministry collegium on March 18, given the crisis in reforming the armed forces, promised to be a crucial test for Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, and there were numerous signals that a vintage performance might be on offer. Earlier... MORE

Co-chairing a session of the Russian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Economic Cooperation Commission in Moscow, Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov asked Hungary to eliminate “subjective” obstacles to Russian investments there (MTI, March 21). In the vocabulary of many Russian officials, “subjective” is Soviet-speak for unjustified or illegitimate, as... MORE

On March 3, a conference titled “The Circassian Question and the Olympics in Sochi” was held at the Moscow center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Many of the participants expressed disappointment with the Kremlin’s reluctance to discuss the issue of the Circassian “genocide”... MORE

Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s, March 16-17 Russia visit capped a four-week period of spectacular changes to Russian energy transit projects, in the Black Sea and beyond. During these critical weeks, Russia abandoned the Trans-Balkan  (Burgas-Alexandropoulos) oil pipeline project, which it had planned for... MORE