On February 24 and 25, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov undertook a landmark visit to Moldova, in preparation for a possible meeting among Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, and Transnistria's Moscow-installed leader Igor Smirnov next month. The ostensible goal is... MORE

The economic crisis is affecting Russia worse than most developed or emerging economies, but its direct impact, such as the recession in industry that is expected to become even more serious in February, is multiplied by the psychological shock from the sudden collapse of belief... MORE

Will the European Union face a new cutoff of gas supplies from Russia in March? This possibility became more ominous when Ukraine's states-owned gas monopoly, Naftohaz Ukrainy, warned that it might not be able to pay its February gas bills on February 19. Barely a... MORE

This week Sergei Kiriyenko, the chief of Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), went to the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr to announce that Russia had completed construction of Iran's first light-water, industrial, 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactor. Kiriyenko told journalists that "The construction stage of... MORE

NATO will hold its 60th anniversary summit from April 2 to 4 on both sides of the Franco-German border. The summit is expected to adopt a basic document on NATO's Strategic Concept, to be finalized after the anniversary event and replace the existing, decade-old Strategic... MORE

"As a scholar, I establish the fact that the Russian Federation is developing signs of the initial stage of a breakup," Professor Alexei Malashenko, Scholar-in-Residence of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told Jamestown on February 12. "Not unlike the case of the USSR, the current economic... MORE

The Kremlin articulated some details of its new assertive energy strategy, following the inauguration of a major energy project on the Pacific island of Sakhalin and a significant energy deal with China. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed perceived attempts to exclude Russia from global energy... MORE

On February 18 Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso visited Sakhalin Island, becoming the first Japanese leader to do so since the end of the Second World War. He was there at the invitation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to participate in a ceremony marking the... MORE

The new economic data released by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics (Rosstat) last week surprised even the doomsayer-economists, who have become the mainstream in this discredited profession. The key statistic was the drop in industrial output in January by 16 percent compared with... MORE