Despite the efforts of two presidents, the new strategic arms reduction treaty, due for signing next week, has been bedeviled by time-consuming technicalities and suspicion.
The bombings which killed 38 people in two Moscow Metro stations during the 29 March morning rush hour calls for a sharp look at the specific character of the present wave of terrorism in Russia.
Threatened with an unmanageable flow of drugs from Afghanistan, Russia is close to making Allied action a condition of its continued support to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
Russia’s purchase of four French frigates has finally exposed the run-down of the country’s once boasted military-industrial complex, for reasons going back to Yeltsin-era ‘shock therapy’.
‘Independent’ Abkhazia and South Ossetia face different roads. Abkhazia, more advanced, is determined not to become a Russian dependency, and is looking for foreign investment and the return of Abkhaz exiles abroad.
The latest Military Balance of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies predicts difficulties in the way of Russia’s implementing its plan for the modernisation of the armed forces.
The final result of Ukraine’s presidential election gives no clear picture of where the country may be heading , but options are open to Viktor Yanukovich, with 48.95% of the vote, and to the loser, Yulia Tymoshenko, with 45.47%.
Foreign public relations companies in the service of mud-slinging candidates look set to provide a dirty second round in the Ukrainian presidential election, while prominent runners-up keep their cards up their sleeves, waiting to see who wins.
For Nursultan Nazarbaev, Kazakhstan’s presidency of OSCE, which opened on 1 January, is the high point of his political life. Already it looks highly unusual, and it's only just beginning.
Ukraine’s presidential election (first round on Sunday 17 January) is still open except for the certain defeat of president Yushchenko. Whoever wins, there is bound to be a disturbed post-election scene, awaiting settlement by yet another, parliamentary, election.
Many people were struck by the absence of a Russian representative when the presidents of five major powers – the US, China, the EU, South Africa and Brazil – signed a non-binding agreement at the UN conference on global warming. Its reasons are complex, but disappointing to conservationists who hoped for a more positive contribution.
The 13th EU-Ukraine summit in Kiev on 4 December was emptied of meaning by Ukraine’s murky politics. With only weeks to go, nobody - in Washington, Moscow or Brussels - cares to gamble on the outcome of next month’s presidential election as incumbent Viktor Yushchenko continues to dig himself into an ever-deeper hole.
The European Union and Russia have a chance to co-operate in resolving old differences, thanks to a easier mood by both sides at last month’s summit in Stockholm.
