Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
The mood ahead of the latest gathering of leaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States is tense. Four of five Central Asian leaders have declined to attend. Georgia will be conspicuously absent. And host Moldova's pro-Western prime minister has dismissed the CIS as "not viable."
On August 23, 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop met Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, in the Kremlin to sign a nonaggression pact -- and a secret protocol establishing "spheres of influence" in Eastern Europe.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sent shock waves through Ukraine’s political elite by issuing an open letter to his counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko. Medvedev accuses Kyiv of undermining a 1997 bilateral agreement on friendship. Medvedev said he hopes the "new political leadership" that emerges after January's presidential vote will take steps to improve relations.
The four opposition parties that together hold a slim majority in Moldova's new parliament have agreed to form a new, Western-oriented coalition. But without reaching a deal with the Communists -- or tempting a few Communist deputies to vote with them -- the opposition does not have the supermajority required to elect a new president. Unless such a deal can be made, Moldova faces months of a caretaker government, followed by more legislative elections early next year.
Ten years ago, Russia was a collapsing state with a dying president and an economy on life support. So the world barely noticed when President Boris Yeltsin tapped a virtually unknown former KGB operative, Vladimir Putin, as his fifth prime minister in 18 months. How did this unlikely pick evolve into Russia's indomitable National Leader?
A year ago the rumbling of Russian tanks in the Caucasus sent shock waves around the world. Moscow argued that the crisis demonstrated the collapse of post-Cold War security structures. NATO, the EU, and the U.S. struggled to respond to the rapidly changing situation on the ground. But 12 months later, specialists say, surprisingly little has changed.
In a break from tradition, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev personally presented his annual budget message to government and legislative leaders. While refraining from open criticism of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or the cabinet, he conceded that the global economic crisis has hit Russia hard.
Lawmakers in Moldova are selecting a successor to longtime Communist President Vladimir Voronin. The opposition is vowing to boycott the vote to prevent the Communists from electing their candidate. If parliament fails, Moldova will face another round of national elections -- and, possibly, more unrest following last month's mass demonstrations.
Dmitry Medvedev took office as Russian president one year ago. But many eyes remained on his powerful predecessor as the country entered a period of so-called tandem rule. The last year has been trying for Russia and the future of its two-headed leadership remains uncertain.
The road to resetting relations between Russia and the West is increasingly riddled with potholes. NATO is set to begin a training exercise in Georgia that Russia's president has denounced as a "blatant provocation," and Moscow has now pulled out of a scheduled NATO meeting in protest.
Russia's president and the de facto leaders of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have signed in Moscow agreements on cooperation in protecting the regions' border with Georgia. The regions declared independence following the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, and Moscow recognized them shortly after. Georgia regards them as occupied Georgian territory.
Critics charge that the mayoral campaign in the city that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics has been highly stage-managed to the benefit of one candidate. Rivals have been harassed and shut out by local media, seemingly to ensure a victory this weekend for the ruling Unified Russia party's man in Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov.
On April 6 and 7, thousands of mostly young Moldovans erupted into violence to protest preliminary election results. The storming of the parliament and presidential residence were the first violent political actions in the country's post-Soviet history. As the smoke clears, the country is asking itself how events took such a turn.
For the first time in his 11 months as prime minister, Vladimir Putin appeared before the Russian State Duma to explain his government's anticrisis program and to answer deputies' questions. In a nonconfrontational encounter with a legislature dominated by the party he heads, Putin expressed confidence Russia will emerge from the current economic crisis with a stronger, more diversified economy.
Georgia's mounting political drama intensified further today when Georgian television aired photographs of the husband of former parliament speaker and opposition leader Nino Burjanadze in Kyiv earlier this month. The pictures showed Burjanadze's husband meeting with a shadowy Georgian oligarch known for his ties to the Moscow government. The new evidence has increased speculation that Moscow is playing an active role in Georgian politics ahead of a major opposition protest scheduled for April 9
Ever since the five-day war between Russia and Georgia broke out in August, Moscow and Tbilisi have traded accusations about who unleashed the violence. Russian TV viewers just got treated to a new installment in the dispute.
Several high-level delegations of former U.S. officials have been in Moscow this month for meetings aimed at rejuvenating U.S.-Russian relations. But the apparent thaw between Washington and Moscow has raised concerns among some of Russia's neighbors, particularly in Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin's successful effort to win the Winter Olympics for Sochi has thrust the city under the spotlight. It has also given the political opposition a rare chance to attract attention despite the country's strictly controlled political environment.
Polish filmmaker Andrej Wajda's "Katyn," which tells the story of the 1940 massacre of 20,000 Polish officers by Stalin's secret police, is not being distributed in Russia. Are these just natural signs of hard economic times? Or part of the Kremlin's effort to promote the dictator as an effective manager who saved the country from destruction?
Voters went to the polls in regional and local elections across Russia on March 1, in the first electoral test in the country since the start of Dmitry Medvedev's presidency and the onset of the global economic crisis.
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