The results were modest," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said of the climate summit in Copenhagen. And that was putting it kindly. Whatever one's reading of the past two weeks' wrangling, it is hard to qualify them as success. For the

The funeral of the economic politician, social activist and public intellectual Yegor Timurovich Gaidar has been postponed. It gave us more time to say goodbye to a man who has largely shaped the world as we know it. I will

The United States and Russia are likely to sign a new strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty perhaps as early as next week, to replace the 18-year-old START I treaty, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1991.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen this week asked the Kremlin to provide Russian helicopters and spare parts to bolster the NATO campaign in Afghanistan. Russian assistance to NATO has been in the offing since the Russia's "reset" with the

Nauru, a Pacific island nation of just 11,000 people, this week became the fourth country to recognize the independence of the break-away Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. While Russia was accused of buying Nauru's loyalty with $50 million

Yegor Gaidar was a "fearless" but controversial figure whose name became associated with the painful reforms that accompanied the transition from a planned to a market economy, and from a Soviet one-party state to a democratic political system, in the

Russia's stranglehold on Central Asia's vast gas supplies appeared to have been broken this week, as Turkmen gas started to flow to China through the new Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline on December 14. Direct access to Turkmenistan's colossal gas reserves has

The first Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I) expired on December 5 this year. And despite pledges to continue "in the spirit" of the document, the fact is that until a replacement treaty is negotiated, Russia and the United States

Studying abroad has been popular among Russians ever since Peter the Great opened his "window to Europe." And even though the revolution of 1917 put a stop to the tradition for several long decades, as soon as the Iron Curtain

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's initiative for a new Euro-Atlantic Security Treaty, published November 29, has received moral support from an influential former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and a recently launched Carnegie Endowment international commission, the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (EASI). But

December is half way through, there are just two weeks left until the New Year holidays, but people continue anxiously asking, "so what else can happen, what other problems should we wait for, when is this horrible year going to

Last week, the Kremlin published its draft of the European Security Treaty, first proposed in June 2008 as President Dmitry Medvedev's first major foreign policy initiative. Moscow has been criticized for offering few specifics of this proposal, and thus failed

Russia and Belarus' top political brass were locked in negotiations for most of yesterday at what was supposed to be a routine one-hour session of the Belarus-Russia Union State Supreme Council. The eight-hour-plus meeting in Moscow was supposed to expand

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki today visited Moscow to enlist Russian support for a bid to get the UN Security Council to recognize the Palestinian state. He left on a positive note, praising the "warmth" of his meetings with Russian

On December 1 the International Court of Justice in the Hague began hearing a legal challenge brought by Serbia against Kosovo's declaration of independence. The court's finding will be non-binding, but the case has already brought out old divisions on

Russia gained a much sought-after foothold in India's nuclear energy sector this week, as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in Moscow on December 7 to step up cooperation on civilian nuclear energy. India's delegation also

Last Friday, the famous Soviet-era sculpture "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" was returned to its historical pedestal at the All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow. A solemn reopening ceremony finished off the five-year-long restoration period. It is expected that the statue won't

Starting on December 2 the Central House of Artists in Moscow hosted the five day long 11th Annual International Fair of Intellectual Literature titled "Non/Fiction." Despite ongoing economic turmoil the book fair proved successful, with a high visitor turnout and

At its latest congress in St. Petersburg, the United Russia Party proclaimed "Russian conservatism" as its official guiding ideology, while President Dmitry Medvedev urged the party to "modernize" in order to remain relevant to the president's modernization agenda. Will United