Igor Khrestin

Putin.jpg The man in charge

The recent debate over the tightening of regulations pertaining to military blogs has reverberated in the mass media and the govenrment. According to the April 19 Army Regulation 530-1, the restriction on OPSEC content "includes, but is not limited to letters, resumes, articles for publication,…

AFTER PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO's dramatic decision to dissolve the parliament on April 2 and schedule new elections on May 27, Ukraine has been plunged into yet another political crisis. In an address to the nation on April 4, deputies from the Verkhovna Rada have decried Yushchenko's move as a coup…

Yulia TymoshenkoYesterday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement strongly condemning an article in Foreign Affairs magazine by former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The statement called the article an "anti-Russian manifesto" and "an attempt to once again draw…

putin-on-the-phone.jpgPresident Putin speaks often with his American counterpart, and the Kremlin's press service reports that the two leaders conducted yet another round of discussions yesterday regarding "cooperation…on current international issues." Those issues included last week's U.N.…

The New York Times is in trouble with the Russian authorities. On Tuesday, the newspaper reported the encouraging news that "Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel . . . unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment." Yesterday's editorial further asserted that "The [Bush]…

With the approaching vote at the U.N. Security Council on a set of new sanctions against Iran, Russia seems to be finally relenting in its unilateral support of Tehran' nuclear ambitions. According to Tuesday's announcement by the chief of the Russian Federal Atomic Agency (RosAtom) Sergei…

Last week, the restive Russian republic of Chechnya got a new president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The appointment, however, did not come as a surprise: Kadyrov has been the de-facto president since the assassination of his father, former Chechen president Akhmat Kadyrov, in May 2004. And contrary to…

Roughly a year after their first visit, Hamas is back in Moscow. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, whereas the March 2006 invitation was extended by President Putin, this time, Hamas leaders (Khalid Mishal and Musa Abu Marzook) have themselves asked to come to Moscow for "consultations". As last…

IT MAY NOT have been Churchill's Fulton speech, but President Putin's harsh rebuke to Pax America in Munich on February 10, seems to have struck a raw nerve in Washington.

WHILE THE EUROPEAN UNION "sighed with relief" and welcomed the "Canadians of American politics" back into control of Congress after a 12-year hiatus, Russian analysts and policymakers found themselves torn between Bush-bashing gleeful postmortems (a "great victory for democracy") and mild…

AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRASH of 1998 and the political disintegration of president Boris Yeltsin, the question in foreign policy circles was, "Who lost Russia?"

LAST SUNDAY, while returning home from Pakistan aboard Air Force One, President Bush received a telephone call from his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The two men discussed several issues that threaten to disrupt U.S.-Russian solidarity in the war on terror--foremost, Russia's diplomatic…