An international court has obliged Naftohaz Ukrainy, the state-controlled oil and gas behemoth, to pass 12 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas and $192 million to RosUkrEnergo (RUE), a joint venture of Gazprom and the Ukrainian businessman, Dmytro Firtash. This is a heavy defeat for... MORE

The US and Russian presidents’ nibbling at hamburgers has had little, if any, effect on the situation in the North Caucasus. Even the US State Department’s decision to designate Doku Umarov as a would-be threat to American interests (www.rus.ruvr.ru, June 24) might be seen as... MORE

A group of ten alleged Russian spies have been arrested in the US by the FBI and another individual in Cyprus in response to an American request. The alleged spies were accused of using distorted or falsified identities to infiltrate the US to gather sensitive... MORE

Piracy has a long history and the struggle with it is closely tied to concepts of national sovereignty, freedom of the seas, and the protection of life and property at sea. In 1609, Hugo Grotius, (1583-1645), the great Dutch legal theorist, provided the legal foundation... MORE

The clashes between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in the Osh and Jalalabad regions of Kyrgyzstan forced the Uzbek and Kazakh Presidents, Islam Karimov and Nursultan Nazarbayev, to abandon their rivalry and contemplate ways of cooperating in the face of the growing impact of the Kyrgyz... MORE

Just as the worst crisis since the events in Osh in 1990 has erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan, resulting in bloodshed and large-scale internal displacement of ethnic Uzbeks, the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has also faced its most severe test to date. Repeated requests... MORE

On June 24, Moldova’s interim president Mihai Ghimpu issued a decree instituting June 28 as the Day of Remembrance of the Soviet Occupation—an event that occurred on June 28, 1940 in what was then Bessarabia, a part of Romania. The decree does not mention Romania... MORE

The Russian authorities, Russian-led security grouping, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) made repeated pledges to tackle the Kyrgyz crisis. However, agreement on any practical moves appeared to remain elusive.The CSTO has repeatedly urged restoring stability in Kyrgyzstan. The... MORE

On June 17, the leaders of civil organizations in Karachaevo-Cherkessia condemned the Circassians' resolution, which called for the break up of this small, multiethnic republic in the Northwest Caucasus. On June 5, an extraordinary meeting of Circassians in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, or the "Cherkes" in Russian, called... MORE

Interrelated disputes over gas prices and transit fees have turned Gazprom into a net debtor to Belarus. As of mid-June, Gazprom’s net debt to Belarus reached $260 million in unpaid transit fees since November 2009. Gazprom itself acknowledged $228 million from this amount. Also by... MORE