Russia's Lukoil has broken into Western Europe's most lucrative oil refining and retail market by taking over Dow Chemicals' 45 percent stake in Total Raffinaderij Nederland (TRN), a choice morsel. The announcement coincided with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's June 19-20 visit to the Netherlands.Seen in... MORE

In a nationally televised address on June 17, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov came down hard on Chechnya's law enforcement agencies for the inadequate results they showed in capturing the rebels (www.rusnovosti.ru, June 17). The Chechen president gave his top brass only two weeks to wipe... MORE

According to Kavkazsky Uzel, the number of terrorist acts, murders of law enforcement personnel and kidnappings has grown significantly in Chechnya since April 16, the day the federal authorities formally announced an end to the decade-long counter-terrorist operation in the republic. The website came to... MORE

The internecine squabbling between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has left investors puzzled and the U.S. dollar affected. On June 13, Kudrin said at a meeting of the G-8 Finance Ministers in Italy that the global financial system as well... MORE

On June 23, the Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced that his government had reached a new agreement with the U.S. government on the status of Manas airbase in Bishkek. According to the president's statement, the U.S. will pay $60 million for renting space at Manas... MORE

On June 24 Georgian television channels played video footage from meetings of radical oppositionists Levan Gachechiladze and Davit Gamkrelidze with the fugitive former internal affairs minister Kakha Targamadze, a wealthy man who resides in Moscow and is believed to be in contact with the Russian... MORE

During the summit between presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in London on April 1, it was decided in the words of Obama, "to prepare by the end of this year a legally binding and sufficiently bold" new nuclear arms control agreement to replace the... MORE

Russian news agencies reported today that Ingushetia's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who was severely wounded on June 22 when a suicide bomber detonated a car near his motorcade in Nazran, remains in critical condition in a Moscow hospital. Meanwhile, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov says he has... MORE

President Viktor Yushchenko has strongly condemned the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars on many occasions and ordered the Security Service (SBU) to open a special investigative unit examining crimes against humanity committed by the Soviet regime against them. Since the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Rukh... MORE

The Russian government has pledged to revive its economic ties with Arab nations. However, Moscow's relations with the Arab world now hardly sound reminiscent of the Soviet-era alliance, as the Kremlin has struggled to cooperate with major Arab energy producers.The Russian first Deputy Prime Minister... MORE