Latest Articles about Russia
Russia Drums Up Support for Its Airbase in Kyrgyzstan
Five years after its establishment, Moscow will more than double its spending on the Russian military airbase in Kyrgyzstan’s Kant city. In 2009 and 2010 Moscow will spend 1.7 billion rubles ($60 million) compared with the 640 million rubles ($22.7 million) spent from 2003 through... MORE
Moscow Wants the OSCE To Negotiate Directly with South Ossetia
In the wake of the OSCE’s year-end meeting, Russia is continuing to block the return of OSCE monitors to a South Ossetia ethnically cleansed of its Georgian population and occupied by massive Russian forces in breach of the armistice. The Russians have prevented the mission’s... MORE
Little Room for Compromise over Missile Defense
Last minute attempts by the outgoing U.S. administration to reach some understanding with Moscow on outstanding arms-control issues have failed. This week RIA-Novosti quoted “a high-ranking source” in the Defense Ministry as saying, "The dialogue with the United States on arms control has been fruitless."... MORE
Ukraine Continues To Knock on the West’s Doors but Looks Back to Russia
Kyiv has suffered several setbacks in its Euro-Atlantic integration plans. The European Union came up with a collective plan for Ukraine and several other post-Soviet states that does not give Ukraine the prospect of EU membership. NATO refrained from offering a Membership Action Plan (MAP),... MORE
OSCE’s Year-End Conference Continues Pattern of Failure
The OSCE’s Finnish chairmanship fell between two stools at the organization’s year-end conference on December 4 and 5 in Helsinki. Despite Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia, a chairmanship overly eager to produce a final political declaration by consensus gave in to Russia on basic issues... MORE
Russia, LNG, and the U.S. Natural Gas Market
In 2006, when oil and natural gas prices began steadily climbing, Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom announced that it had ambitions to become a leading Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) supplier to the enormous U.S. gas market. Gazprom and its Kremlin masters were eager to claim... MORE
Russia’s Gazprom Eyes Governmental Support
Russia's Gazprom Eyes Governmental Support Despite the current economic climate, the state-run gas monopoly Gazprom has pledged to move ahead with its ambitious development program, but it now appears that it will be forced to rely increasingly on government support.Earlier this month, Gazprom started construction... MORE
The Russo-Chinese Energy Follies
Chinese and Russian officials habitually proclaim that their bilateral relations have never been better and thereby invoke a great congruence in their agenda for the international regime. Thus Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the U.S. and Canada Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences, writes... MORE
NATO ANPs Instead of MAPs for Ukraine and Georgia
NATO has pushed aside the Membership Action Plans (MAPs) as mechanisms for Ukraine’s and Georgia’s eventual accession to the alliance. On December 3 in Brussels, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) meeting at the level of ministers of foreign affairs decided to develop Annual National Programs... MORE
OSCE Avoids the Hard Issues at Year-End Conference
In common with all OSCE chairmanships since 2003 (when Russian veto power mauled the organization irreparably during the Dutch chairmanship), Finland set itself a minimal task in 2008: to ensure institutional survival by deferring to Russia in Europe’s East and hosting a “successful” year-end conference,... MORE