Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, has expressed “moderate” optimism about a near-term resolution of the Karabakh conflict after hosting yet another meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. The talks held in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan on October 27 underscored Moscow’s key role in... MORE

Komsomolskaya Pravda has highlighted a paradoxical and endemic problem facing military reform: large-scale corruption in the officer corps represent black holes into which billions of rubles disappear. Despite the reform, officers continue to rip off state funds. The corruption is rampant and figures offered in... MORE

On November 4, mass protests occurred in Chechnya. Workers with the state construction firm Spetsstroi stayed off the job after not having been paid for four months, and went back to work only after they were promised that they would soon receive their back pay.... MORE

On October 30, Poland announced its intention to privatize the state-owned majority stake in the country’s second-largest oil industry concern, Lotos Group. The Polish government is inviting interested parties to pre-tender talks on the Lotos Group. The government has already talked with the Russian government... MORE

Last Sunday marked the 93rd anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, which used to be the major official holiday in the Soviet Union and remains a date about which the Russians have mixed feelings, but only 9 percent see it as a catastrophe (www.levada.ru, November 2).... MORE

Investigators in Kabardino-Balkaria said today (November 5) that two hunters found dead yesterday (November 4) may have died at the hands of members of “illegal armed formations.” The bodies of two residents of the city of Nalchik –69-year-old Vycheslav Kiriloyuk and 64-year-old Valdislav Revazov– were... MORE

Since the beginning of fall 2010 a tide of kidnappings of young people accused of participating in the armed underground has swept Ingushetia. On October 22, three young Ingush were arrested in three different places of this troubled republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region. On... MORE

This week Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, after completing a state visit to Vietnam, landed on the southern Kurile Island of Kunashir (Japanese name –Kunashiri) which has been under Russian rule since 1945. Japan claims the so-called Northern Territories of the Southern Kuriles: the Habomai islets,... MORE

The Kremlin has repeatedly pledged to implement sizable infrastructure development projects in Mongolia. However, new Russian projects in this neighboring state have tended to be slow to materialize. In an apparent bid to speed up joint projects, in early October Russia and Mongolia moved to... MORE

On October 18, hundreds of people blocked a federal highway near Magas, the capital of Ingushetia. The protestors demanded that the government put an end to abductions in the republic. Dzhamaleil Gagiev’s disappearance from the village of Ali-Yurt in Ingushetia on October 14, and the... MORE