On Monday July 6, President Barack Obama is expected in Moscow for a summit to discuss nuclear arms control, Iran, Afghanistan the post-Soviet space and other issues. It has been announced that Obama will spend most of July 6 in formal as well as informal... MORE

Militants in Dagestan today attacked the headquarters of the police in the city of Derbent, just south of the republic capital Makhachkala and near the border with Georgia, Russian and Western news agencies reported. According to the Associated Press, three policemen and a civilian died... MORE

A burst of sunshine has finally been shed on the little known story of how a once obscure Ukrainian entrepreneur, Dmytro Firtash, suspected of links to Russian organized crime, and his unknown partners in a Cypriot holding company named Mabofi Holdings, established Emfesz KFT, a... MORE

On June 30 the OSCE officially terminated its Mission in Georgia, which had for 17 years monitored the situation in and around South Ossetia. Russia forced the OSCE to close the Mission by vetoing the prolongation of its mandate in the OSCE's Permanent Council. Also... MORE

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu attended the informal meeting of OSCE foreign ministers on the Greek island of Corfu on June 27-28. In addition to presenting Ankara's views on the future of the European security architecture, Davutoglu also discussed Turkey's bilateral relations on the sidelines... MORE

On June 14, after the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Moscow formally created its new Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hailed this achievement as a "step toward creating a military force to be reckoned with, truly capable of responding... MORE

On June 15, the Dagestani branch of Rossvyazkomnadzor, the Russian state agency that oversees the media, filed a lawsuit to shut down the Makhachkala-based independent weekly Chernovik because of its alleged support for extremist views, and on June 18 the paper had its first court... MORE

Chinese demand is voracious for Turkmen gas. Russia's import stoppage (see above article) can only strengthen Turkmenistan's motivation to start exports to China on schedule in early 2010. With Russia demonstrating its unreliability as a gas importer (let alone supplier to others), Beijing is using... MORE

Russia's suspension of gas deliveries via Ukraine to Europe last January was a hard lesson (not the first of this type) to consumer countries. Moscow's prolonged and continuing stoppage of gas purchases from Turkmenistan (also not for the first time) is an even harder lesson... MORE

Russian energy super-giant Gazprom has taken severe blows in the still-deepening recession, and the worst setbacks have happened in its most profitable market - the European Union. Various assessments show that the volume of its export to Europe shrunk by 35-40 percent in the first... MORE