Timeline Russia 1996-2006
Return to home
1996 Jan 10,
Russian troops allowed a convoy of Chechen rebels and 160 hostages to
head for Chechnya, then surrounded them in the village of
Pervomayskaya. After a five-day standoff, Russian troops launched a
massive military assault that resulted in the deaths of most of the
rebels and some of the hostages.
(AP, 1/10/01)
1996 Jan 10, Chechen rebels seized
as many as 3,000 hostages in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)
1996 Jan 12, Chechen fighters
holding more than 100 hostages in the Russian village of Pervomayskaya
freed about a dozen of their captives and pledged to release the rest
if four top Russian officials took their place.
(AP, 1/12/01)
1996 Jan 15, Risking the lives of
more than 100 hostages in an effort to wipe out their Chechen rebel
captors, the Russian military hurled rockets and shells at the tiny
village of Pervomayskaya, at the border of Dagestan and Chechnya.
(WSJ, 1/16/96, p. A-1)(AP, 1/15/01)
1996 Jan 16, Chechens hijacked a
ferry with 165 passengers and crew from the Turkish port of Trabzon
bound for the Russian city of Sochi. Gunmen in Trabzon, Turkey,
hijacked a Black Sea ferry with more than 200 people on board, and
demanded that Russian troops stop fighting Chechen rebels in
Pervomayskaya. The hostages were released three days later after the
Russian troops stormed Pervomaiskoye.
(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)(AP, 1/16/01)
1996 Jan 26 Yeltsin appointed
Vladimir Kadannikov to oversee national economic policy. Mr. Kadannikov
was general-director of the debt-ridden Volzhsky Auto Works.
(WSJ, 1/26/96, A-6)
1996 Jan, Yeltsin let go of
Anatoly Chubais as First Deputy Prime Minister under pressure from his
hard-line critics.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Feb 22, Russia and the head
of the International Monetary Fund reached a deal for a loan of more
than ten billion dollars to back up free-market reforms.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1996 Feb, Yeltsin announced that
the war in Chechnya was a mistake and began negotiations with rebels.
Russian forces withdrew and Chechnya descended into lawlessness.
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.A11)
1996 Feb, Anatoly Chubais attended
the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Feb, Alexander Nikitin, a
former naval officer, was arrested on charges of providing secret
information to Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group. He had written
a report for Bellona on pollution by the Russian Northern Fleet. His
trial began in 1998. Nikitin was acquitted Dec 29, 1999. The Supreme
Court upheld the acquittal in 2000.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A16)(SFC,
9/14/00, p.C2)
1996 Mar 15, The Duma voted
overwhelmingly for a Communist resolution calling the 1991 Soviet
breakup illegal.
(WSJ, 3/18/96, A-1)
1996 Mar 31 Russian President
Boris Yeltsin announced a halt to combat operations in Chechnya,
limited troop withdrawals and a willingness to hold indirect talks with
the rebels' leader.
(AP, 3/31/97)
1996 Mar, Anatoly Chubais
unofficially took over Yeltsin’s re-election campaign from First Deputy
Oleg Soskovets.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Apr 25, Top Chechen officials
confirmed that their leader, Dzhokar Dudayev, was killed in a Russian
air strike. He was succeeded Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five
grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening
Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the
presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai
and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel that
demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ,
3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Apr, Russia’s richest men
gathered in Moscow and drafted a letter asking Yeltsin and Zyuganov to
reach a compromise. It was a veiled subtext calling for elections to be
postponed and for Yeltsin to share power with the Communists.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)
1996 May 25, Drought has hit
Russia’s southern Stavropol region since March and forced farmers to
halt planting of crops.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A5)
1996 May 27, Chechen leader
Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin agreed to a
peace accord and prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin signed the
agreement with Yanderbiyev.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A1)
1996 May, Communist leader
Zyuganov wanted Russia’s president to stop being czar and its mayors to
stop being little czars. "Not a single minister should be appointed
without the consent of the legislative power."
(SFC, 5/31/96, A14)
1996 Jun 3, Yeltsin signed a
decree recently calling for an end to the draft by the year 2000 and an
all-volunteer professional army. He has also beefed up the Interior
Ministry, responsible for local and national law enforcement to a force
of 900,000.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 4, Statistics by the
Russian Chamber of Commerce cited that more than 70% of all businesses
pay protection money to organized crime. Entrepreneurs say they turn
over 10-20% of revenues as tribute. Regional elite and local rulers
preside over the vast geographic quilt of 89 regions, broken down into
21 autonomous republics plus 66 provinces and the virtual city-states
of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 6, Yeltsin ordered the
Central Bank to transfer $1 billion to the federal budget to fulfill
campaign promises to teachers, doctors, and the military.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1996 Jun 7, There was a bomb
attack on the Moscow vice mayoral candidate. Valery Shantsev, running
mate of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and supporter of Yeltsin, was wounded and
severely burned.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 9, A rebel spokesman said
that the two sides have agreed on the withdrawal of Russian troops from
Chechnya by the end of August.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C2)
1996 Jun 10, Gazprom, the state
controlled natural gas monopoly, bought a stake in NTV, the main
independent TV network. The Most Group under Vladimir Gusinsky will
retain a controlling stake.
(WSJ, 6/10/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 11, A bomb ripped through
a Moscow subway and killed 12 people.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 13, Viktor Mosalov, mayor
of Zhukovsky, was found shot to death.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A16)
1996 Jun 16, Boris Yeltsin edged
out Gennady Zyuganov in elections but failed to win a quorum. A runoff
will be held in July.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 18, Boris Yeltsin named
Gen’l. Alexander Lebed to head the Security Council. Lebed had won
14.7% of the vote in Sunday’s election. Yeltsin also fired his defense
chief, Grachev.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 19, Boris Fyodorov,
former leader of Russia’s National Sports Fund, was shot and stabbed on
a Moscow street. He had been arrested on drug charges last month. He
was also chairman of the National Credit Bank, which used tax breaks
that cost the government $2 billion, to import cigarettes and liquor.
The Sports Fund has ordered an audit.
(WSJ, 6/20/96, p.A14)
1996 Jun 20, Yeltsin fired 3
aides. Alexander Korzhakov, head of his personal security force; Deputy
Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets; and Mikhail Barshukov, head of a KGB
successor agency.
(WSJ, 6/21/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 23, The Russian defense
budget has dropped to $63 billion.
(SFC, 6/23/96, zone 1 p.6)
1996 Jun 25, Yeltsin fired 7 top
generals and ordered a pullout from Chechnya.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to the
polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist
challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential
elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about 40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a
Big Mac in Russia was $1.93.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Jul 12, Russian banks were
undergoing a major shakeout. 2,132 banks were operating, a 20% decrease
since 1994.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 16, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin met a day late with Vice President Al Gore, easing some
of the concerns about his fragile health.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1996 Jul 17, Yeltsin named Gen’l.
Igor Rodionov as defense minister.
(WSJ, 7/18/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 7, In Russia communist
leader Gennady Zyuganov was elected to lead a collation of Communists
and nationalists under the banner of the Popular Patriotic Union.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 9, Pyotr Karpov, a
Russian deputy agent in declaring whether state-owned firms should be
declared bankrupt, was charged with taking bribes in 1994 in Saratov.
He had been arrested 2 weeks ago and sent to prison in Saratov.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Aug 11, Pres. Yeltsin
appointed Alexander Lebed as his pres. envoy to Chechnya.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 14, In Russian Yeltsin
gave security chief Lebed the authority to control and coordinate the
operations of the army, Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service and
other agencies in Chechnya.
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.C2)
1996 Aug 19, A Russian Ilyushin-76
carrying rescue flares and car wheels destined for Libya crashed at
Belgrade’s airport and killed all 12 aboard.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 27, Russian and Chechen
military commanders signed the Khasavyurt Accords, an agreement for
military disengagement.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A8)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
1996 Aug 29, A Russian Tu-154
plane with 141 passengers crashed on a desolate Arctic island 6 miles
from Spitsbergen where they were returning to jobs in a Russian-run
coal mine. It was the worst crash in Norway’s history.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
1996 Aug, Vladimir Putin moved to
Moscow to become deputy Kremlin property manager.
(WSJ, 2/23/05, p.A14)
1996 Sep 3, In Russia Alexander
Lebed said that about 80,000 people had died in the fighting in
Chechnya during the 21 months of the war.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)(SFC, 10/18/96, A18)
1996 Sep 24, Pavel Sudoplatov,
Stalin’s spy chief who stole atomic secrets and plotted the killing of
Trotsky, died.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.B1)
1996 Sep, Former army officer Igor
and an accomplice stole 200 leather-bound books valued to $2 million
from Moscow’s State Public Historical Library.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.C16)
1996 Oct 11, Yeltsin approved an
emergency commission on tax collection to crack down on the chronic
problem of tax evasion.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 17, Pres. Boris Yeltsin
dismissed Alexander Lebed from his post as national security chief.
(SFC, 10/18/96, A1)
1996 Oct 19, Boris Yeltsin
appointed Ivan Rybkin as Sec. of The National Security Council.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, A15)
1996 Oct 24, Yeltsin of Russia and
Kuchma of the Ukraine agreed to divide the Black Sea Fleet.
(WSJ, 10/25/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 3, US businessman, Paul
Tatum, was assassinated on the steps of a Moscow subway station in what
his relatives suspect was a contract slaying by the Russian mafia. He
was in a long-running fight to gain control of the
Radisson-Slavyanskaya hotel.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A8)(AP, 11/3/97)
1996 Nov 5, Pres. Boris Yeltsin
had successful heart bypass surgery. Five clogged arteries were
circumvented.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A21)(AP, 11/5/97)
1996 Nov 7, Pres. Boris Yeltsin
transformed the anniversary of the 1917 Revolution to a day of
remembrance for the millions of victims of Soviet repression.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 10, A bomb ripped through
a crowd of mourners in a Moscow cemetery, killing 14 people and
wounding nearly 50. It came during a memorial service for Colonel
Mikhail Likhodey, chairman of the Afghan War Invalids Fund, who was
killed by a bomb in 1994. Authorities later charged the head of an
Afghan war veterans fund with masterminding the bombing, saying the
target was a rival veterans group.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A11)(AP,
11/10/97)
1996 Nov 16, An explosion at a
military housing project in Kaspiysk in the Dagestan Republic killed 56.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 16-1996 Nov 17, The
Russian Mars 96 probe was launched on a Proton rocket. The upper stage
rocket failed and the probe crashed into the South Pacific.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.B1)(AP, 11/17/01)
1996 Nov 23, Pres. Yeltsin ordered
all troops withdrawn from Chechnya by Jan 27, when elections would be
held.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 27, A military cargo
plane, an Ilyushin-76, crashed in central Siberia and 23 were killed.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.B6)
1996 Dec 1, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri,
head of the Egyptian Jihad, crossed into Russia on his way to Chechnya
as a possible base of operations. He was soon arrested by Russian
police in Dagestan.
(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A8)
1996 Dec 3, Tens of thousands of
coal miners went on strike. At least 100 of 287 coal mines were shut
down.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.C3)
1996 Dec 8, Voters in Kostroma,
250 northeast of Moscow, rejected a referendum to complete a nuclear
power plant by 80%.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 11, Union leaders decided
to end the cola miners’ strike. Up to 400,000 miners had taken part.
(WSJ, 12/12/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 13, A new statue of Peter
the Great, meant to honor the navy that he built, was made by Georgian
artist Zurab Tsereteli and erected on the Moscow River. The artist was
a close friend of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A10)(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A8)
1996 Dec 17, The Russian Booker
Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei
Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
(www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1996/12/17/004.html)
1996 Dec 17, An AN-12 military
transport crashed and killed all 17 people onboard shortly after
takeoff from St. Petersburg. Colonel General Sergei Seleznyov,
commander of the Leningrad military district, was among the dead.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 19, Yuli Khariton (92),
the Soviet nuclear scientist who helped develop the Soviet atomic bomb,
died.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 23, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin returned to his office at the Kremlin after a six-month
bout with a heart ailment.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1996 Dec 27, Russia and China
agreed to remove troops along their border and to build a nuclear power
plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu province with a $2.5 billion loan from
Russia.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, Some 300 people were
trapped in the Roksky Pass tunnel in the Caucasus between North Ossetia
and the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. Also Alexander
Lebed announced the new Russian Popular Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec, Alexander Nikitin,
former Russian Navy captain, was released by the FSB from jail after 10
months for his 2 chapters in the book: "The Russian Northern Fleet:
Sources of Radioactive Contamination." Nikitin was acquitted
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A12)
1996 The Russian film "Prisoner of
the Mountain" by Sergei Bodrov won the Audience Award at the Sundance
Film Festival. It was set in the current Russian-Chechen war and
starred Oleg Menshikov and Sergei Bodrov Jr.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.35)
1996 Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of St.
Petersburg, lost his office. He fled to France in 1997 under
allegations of abuse of power and bribery.
(SFC, 2/23/00, p.A19)
1996 In Cherepovets, Russia,
Alexei Mordoshov, CFO of Severstal Steel, took over as chief executive.
(WSJ, 6/9/04, p.A8)
1996 Syria acquired new chemical
weapons technology from Russia.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A11)
1997 Jan 7, Russia’s inflation
rate for 1996 was announced to have fallen to 21.8%, down from 133% in
1995.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A14)
1997 Feb 25, Andrei Sinyavsky
(71), dissident writer, died in France. His best known books were "A
Voice From the Chorus" and "Goodnight." He published "The Renters"
(1959) and "Lyubimov" (1962) abroad under the pseudonym Abram Tertz.
(SFC, 2/26/97, p.A16)
1997 Mar 2, The Russian Soyuz
TM-24 returned to Earth.
(http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/machines/stm24.sht)
1997 Mar 4, Russia launched Zeya
Start-1, a test satellite, aboard a modified SS-25 ballistic missile
from the new Svobodny cosmodrome in the Amur region of eastern Siberia.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A1)(SC, 3/4/02)
1997 Mar 11, Pres. Yeltsin
reorganized the government and only kept Prime Minister Chernomyrdin
and top economic deputy Chubais.
(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Mar 16, At the request of a
hobbled President Clinton, Russia's Boris Yeltsin agreed to delay their
upcoming summit by one day to give Clinton an extra day to recuperate
from knee surgery.
(AP, 3/16/98)
1997 Mar 17, In southern Russia a
Stavropol Airlines AN-24 airplane crashed and all 50 aboard were
presumed dead.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Mar 20, Bill Clinton and
Boris Yeltsin met in Helsinki for talks on arms control and NATO
expansion. They agreed to negotiate a new arms accord to reduce
strategic warheads, and to give Russia a more formal role in the Group
of Seven leading industrialized nations.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A1)(AP, 3/20/98)
1997 Mar 21, President Clinton and
Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki,
Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on
slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.
(AP, 3/21/02)
1997 Mar 27, The Federation of
Independent Trade Unions called for a nationwide strike on this date to
protest unpaid wages.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 1, Grigory
Chkhartishvili, Russian philologist and essayist, conceived of a
project to write Russian historical detective novels. The 1st novel of
his B. Akunin project was printed in 1998 and introduced Erast
Fandorin, a turn of the 20th century ambassador-detective.
(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.D5)
1997 Apr 1, In Russia Yeltsin
signed an agreement with Belarus for limited economic, military and
political integration.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 1, A bomb in Moscow
destroyed the statue of Nicholas II, the city’s only monument to
the last czar of Russia. It was erected in 1996 to mark the centenary
of his coronation.
(WSJ, 4/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police
reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said
planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or
China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former
Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1997 Apr 14, In SF the winners of
the 1997 Goldman Environmental Prize were announced: One went to
Alexander Nikitin of Russia who helped to expose the danger of
radioactive fuel from Russian submarines stored in the Arctic waters
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 22, Gunmen in Moscow
killed the head of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation in what appeared
to be a gangland slaying.
(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)
1997 Apr 28, A bomb in southern
Russia killed one person and injured 17 at a train station in
Pyatigorsk. It was the 2nd bombing in a week and Chechen rebels were
blamed.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A1)
1997 May 5, The Russian film
"Mother and Son" was shown at the SF Film Festival. It starred Gudrun
Geyer and Alexei Ananishnov and was directed by Alexander Sokurov. It
was about the spiritual love between a young man and his dying mother.
It was written by Yuri Arabov.
(SFC, 4/23/97, p.D1)(SFC, 2/20/98, p.C3)
1997 May 9, Pres. Yeltsin approved
a new security doctrine that stipulated that right to use nuclear
weapons if it was attacked.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A12)
1997 May 14, Negotiators agreed on
a pact to create a Russia-NATO advisory council. NATO agreed not to
base nuclear weapons or substantial combat forces in countries that
were recently under Moscow’s control.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A1)
1997 May 22, Pres. Yeltsin fired
defense minister Gen’l. Igor Rodionov and Viktor Samsanov, head of the
general staff, for lack of military reforms.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A1)
1997 May 23, It was reported that
huge forest fires near Lake Baikal had consumed more than 400,000 acres
of Siberian woodland and killed 20 people over the last 2 months.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1997 May 23, Russia and Belarus
signed a union charter for economic, military and political cooperation.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 27, In Paris, Russian
President Boris Yeltsin joined 16 NATO leaders, including President
Clinton, to sign a historic agreement giving Moscow a voice in NATO
affairs.
(AP, 5/27/98)
1997 May 31, Russia and the
Ukraine signed a friendship treaty. Boris Yeltsin traveled to Kiev to
sign the treaty.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)
1997 May, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri,
head of the Egyptian Jihad, was released from a Russian jail. He had
attempted to get to Chechnya and was arrested in Dagestan and held for
6 months.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.A1)
1997 Jun 5, Harold J. Nicholson,
the highest-ranking CIA officer ever caught spying against his own
country, was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison for selling defense
secrets to Russia after the Cold War. Officials later claimed that he
and his son continued to make contact with Russian operatives. In 2009
Nicholson and his son were arraigned on charges of money laundering and
acting as agents of a foreign government.
(AP, 6/5/98)(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A3)
1997 Jun 11, The Russian film
"Anna" by Nikita Mikhalkov opened in SF.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3
1997 Jun 11, It was reported the
Pres. Yeltsin planned to remove Yevgeny Nazdratenko, governor of the
far-eastern Primorsky region, due to extensive crime and corruption.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Jun 14, From Russia it was
announced that there were over 9,000 organized crime groups employing
some 100,000 people.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Jun 19, The legislature gave
a preliminary nod to a new tax code.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jun 22, It was reported that
the newspaper Top Secret published a story that exposed Valentin
Kovalev, justice minister, cavorting with nude women in a sauna in a
secret Sep 1995 video. The video was shot at the nightclub hangout of
the Solntsevo crime gang in Sep. 1995. The video was acquired from the
vault of banker Arkady Angelevich, arrested Apr 17 on suspicion of
embezzlement.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)(SFC, 6/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 25, An unmanned cargo
vessel crashed in the Russian Mir space station during a docking
practice. The area was sealed off and the situation was considered
serious for the 3 astronauts onboard.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, An explosive device
was set off on a train as it approached Torbino, 140 miles southeast of
St. Petersburg, and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 1, The grave site of
9,000 victims in the Karelia Forest at Medvezhyegorsk was opened. In
Oct-Nov, 1937, a 3-man panel under Stalin, the "Osobaya Troika," signed
death sentences that were sent to thousands of gulags across Russia and
led to the massacre. A monument was planned.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 3, Pres. Yeltsin fired
justice minister Valentin Kovalyov due to the sex scandal of Jun 22.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Jul 4, The parliament passed
a law to reassert state control over weapons exports.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Jul 8, In Dagestan a bomb
blew up on a bus carrying Russian border police and 9 officers were
killed. Sporadic violence continued along with kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 17, Boris Yeltsin signed
decrees to cut the size of the armed forces by one-third and installed
plans to boost tax collection.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 29, The deputy head of a
construction firm in Moscow and the head of a shipping firm in St.
Petersburg were killed as well as 2 aides in apparent contract
shootings.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul, Pres. Yeltsin formally
reinstated the Don Cossack regiments into Russia’s armed forces.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 1, In Russia Svyatoslav
Richter, concert pianist, died at 82 in Moscow. He was known for his
brilliant technique in numerous styles.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 4, Russia announced that
it would redenominate the ruble at the beginning of 1998. Three zeroes
would be taken off the bills with current inflation at about 12%.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 5, From Russia’s
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan a Mir repair mission was launched with a 2-man
replacement crew.
(WSJ, 8/6/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 13, The book "Boris
Yeltsin: From Dawn to Sunset" by former bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov
went on sale.
(SFC, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 13, From Russia it was
reported that a helicopter accidentally had dropped a 2.3 ton lead box
containing strontium 90 into 66 feet of water off Sakhalin Island.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 21, Yuri Nikulin
(b.1921), cherished comic actor, died.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A24)
1997 Aug 21, From Russia the
Kremlin demanded the release of journalists of ORT TV. They were jailed
in Belarus for allegedly trying to cross the border illegally into
Lithuania. The journalists had made negative reports on Pres.
Lukashenko.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 28, Pres. Yeltsin set the
draft Russian military budget at $14 million, up from $11.9 million. He
also fired the head of the defense council and his culture minister.
(WSJ, 8/29/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 31, Vitaly Schmidt (47),
Russian oil tycoon, died in Moscow. Much of his fortune came from a
group of small offshore energy companies he oversaw on behalf of
himself and a few fellow executives of OAO Lukoil.
(WSJ, 12/6/06, p.A1)
1997 Aug, Mikhail Manevich, deputy
governor of the of St. Petersburg region and privatization chief, was
shot and killed. In 1998 4 suspects were arrested in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1997 Sep 2, Space Agency officials
blamed the cosmonauts for the Jun 25 crash on the Mir space station.
Later ground controllers were also held partly responsible.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C3)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 26, US and Russia signed
a package of arms control agreements that extended parts of START II to
2007. Systems were still required to be disabled by 2003. Other accords
modified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 with Belarus,
Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Russia to allow flexibility for the
development of short range systems.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 9, Moscow police arrested
Gennady Konyakhin, mayor of Leninsk-Kuznetsky in Siberia, on charges of
siphoning cash from the public coffers.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1997 Oct 18, It was reported that
the new 500,000-ruble note has a picture of a 15th century monastery
depicted at a time when the site was used as the Soviet Union’s first
real labor camp.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 19, Hungarian-born George
Soros, American financier and philanthropist, said he would spend some
$500 million over 3 years in Russia to improve health care, expand
educational opportunities, and help retrain the military for civilian
jobs.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 19, It was reported that
Aman Tuleyev was elected as Communist governor of Kemerova, also known
as Kuzbass, a region in western Siberia.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 31, Russia’s lower house
ratified a global ban on chemical weapons. After the Duma it goes to
the Federation Council for approval. The upper house approved the ban
Nov 5.
(SFC,11/1/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct, A border treaty was
signed between Russia and Lithuania.
(WSJ, 12/1/97, p.A18)
1997 Nov 1, Russia’s Pres. Boris
Yeltsin met with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto at
Krasnoyarsk to discuss economic cooperation.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A22)
1997 Nov 5, Pres. Yeltsin fired
Boris Berezovsky from his position as deputy secretary of the Security
Council due to business and political conflicts. Berezovsky, who
brokered the peace agreement in Chechnya, was rated by Fortune magazine
as the 97th richest man in the world.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.C2)
1997 Nov 10, In China Pres.
Yeltsin began talks with China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin. They settled a
border dispute and authorized agreements on trade and protection of
Manchurian tigers.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(SFC,11/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Nov 12, Lawmakers in the
Saratov region passed the first land-sale law.
(WSJ, 11/13/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 14, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin fired deputy chief of staff Alexander Kozakov due to a $90,000
advance payment for a book on the history of state owned property
sales. Kozakov presided over relations between the Kremlin and local
governments. He was expected to keep his position as chairman of the
board of Gazprom. The following day he fired 2 more ministers,
privatization chief Maxim Boiko and Federal Bankruptcy Commission chief
Pyotr Mostovoi.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A12)(SFEC,11/16/97, p.A22)
1997 Nov 18, Tariq Aziz of Iraq
and Pres. Yeltsin worked on a peaceful resolution to the UN weapons
inspection crises and announced a plan.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.A19)
1997 Nov 20, Iraq agreed to allow
US arms inspectors back into the country after Russia agreed to help
work to lift UN Security Council sanctions.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 25, In Russia Richard
Bliss (29), an employee of Qualcomm Comm., was arrested for spying
while performing land surveys using satellite receivers in
Rostov-on-Don. Qualcomm was under contract to install a cellular phone
system. Bliss was later released for a Christmas holiday with some
assurance that he would return for trial.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A8)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A3)
1997 Nov 25, President Clinton and
Pacific Rim leaders meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, approved a
rescue strategy for Asian economies shaken by plunging currencies, bank
failures and bankruptcies. The 2-day APEC summit in Vancouver closed
and leaders agreed to an IMF bailout plan. Forum leaders also agreed to
admit Russia, Vietnam and Peru into the organization as of 1998.
(SFC,11/26/97, p.C2)(HN, 11/25/98)
1997 Nov 26, Pres. Yeltsin signed
a decree to allow Russians to freely buy and sell municipal land under
residential and industrial buildings.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B5)
1997 Dec 1, The Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between Russia and the EU came into force.
It was signed in June 1994 to encourage political, commercial, economic
and cultural cooperation.
(www.delrus.ec.europa.eu/en/p_243.htm)
1997 Dec 2, A mine in the Kuzbass
region of southern Siberia exploded from methane gas and killed 67
miners.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.C5)
1997 Dec 3, Pres. Yeltsin
announced that Russia is ready to cut troop strength in the Baltic
region by 20% by Jan 1, 1999.
(SFC, 12/4/97, p.C4)
1997 Dec 5, Pres. Yeltsin visited
the lower house of parliament and prodded the passage of the new budget
with austere spending plans.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec 6, In Siberia a Russian
Antonov-124 jet cargo aircraft crashed seconds after takeoff on the
edge of Irkutsk into an apartment building and killed at least 62
(68-69) people.
(SFEC,12/797, p.A19)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A1)(AP,
12/6/98)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
1997 Dec 9, In Russia 3 armed
hijackers seized an Ilyushin-62 passenger plane from far east city of
Magadan with at least 140 people onboard. They demanded $10 million and
a flight to Switzerland.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 11, Russia announced that
it would terminate a recently negotiated 10-year contract with the US
on uranium sales, and planned to sell its uranium on the open market.
The decision could bring Russia an extra $500 million.
(SFC,12/12/97, p.B6)
1997 Dec 11, An An-12 cargo plane
hit a civilian helicopter at the Naryan-Mar airport and all 8
passengers in the helicopter were killed.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.B2)
1997 Dec 25, A Russian Proton-K
rocket failed 6 hours after launch and dumped the $100 million
ASIASAT-3 satellite made by Hughes Space and Comm. Int’l. for Asia
Satellite Telecom. into a useless orbit. Engineers in May, 1998,
planned to use gravity assist to send the satellite around the moon and
back to a usable orbit.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.B2)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A7)
1997 Dec 25, Richard Bliss, a
field technician for Qualcomm Inc. accused of spying in Russia, arrived
in San Diego after Russian authorities were persuaded to let him return
home. Russia said its investigation of Bliss continues.
(AP, 12/25/98)
1997 Dec 30, Russia signed an
agreement to build a $3B nuclear power plant in China.
(www.nti.org/db/china/jiangsu.htm)
1997 Dec, An arms deal in
principle between Russia and Yugoslavia was made in Moscow. The deal
was later denied by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A10)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1997 The Russian Orthodox church,
under Patriarch Alexy II, supported a law the curbed the activities of
non-traditional faiths, like non-Orthodox forms of Christianity.
(Econ, 12/13/08, p.60)
1997 The AO Dovgan Protected
Quality Corp. led by Valdimir Dovgan had revenues of $400 mil.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A1)
1997 A new law on religion gave
the courts the right to disband groups found guilty of inciting hatred
or intolerant behavior.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.D2)
1997 Pres. Yeltsin’s annual
earnings were reported to be $320,000.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1997 The Yeltsin government
created an armed tax police force to collect delinquent taxes.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A12)
1997 A Stockholm arbitration
tribunal ruled that Russia owed over $100 million to Compagnie Noga
d’Importation et d’Exportation SA led by Nessim Gaon. Gaon won a 2nd
ruling in 2001 and strove to raid Russia’s assets abroad.
(WSJ, 4/24/01, p.A1)
1997 Scientists discovered a layer
of light blue rock in the Ural Mountains of Siberia and later
christened it "dianite" after Princess Diana.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A15)
1998 Jan 1, The government knocked
3 zeroes off the national currency. The old ruble notes will be
exchangeable until 2002.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A15)
1998 Jan 3, Peter Christoff, US
prof. of Russian history at SF State Univ., died at age 86. His
dissertation was on Alexander Herzen and Mikhail Bakunin and he later
specialized on the Slavophil movement, which attempted to reinforce
Orthodox Christian values and Slavic cultural traditions in the former
USSR. His main work was a 4-volume "History of Russian Slavism."
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A19)
1998 Jan 13, It was reported that
Anna Krupenina (78), Baba Nura, was being hailed as the holy
grandmother of St. Petersburg.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 8, Olga Danilova of
Russia won the first gold medal of the Nagano Winter Games in
15-kilometer classical cross-country skiing.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1998 Feb 11, Pres. Yeltsin
completed a 3 day visit to Italy and scored $5 billion in trade and
investment contracts.
(SFC, 2/12/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 14, Russia's Ilya Kulik
won the men's figure skating gold medal at the Nagano Olympics.
(AP, 2/14/99)
1998 Mar 11, In Moscow Marino
Yarovov (43) was boiled to death when she fell into a sinkhole of
muddy, boiling water, created from leaking underground hot water pipes
run by Mosenergo. A 10-year old boy died similarly 6 weeks previously.
His father, who tried to rescue him, died 11 days later from severe
burns.
(SFC, 4/898, p.A14)
1998 Mar 19, Russian security
officials reported that 2 young US Mormon missionaries were kidnapped
in the Volga region of Saratov. The missionaries were released after 3
days with no ransom paid.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 21, Galina Ulanova
(b.1910), ballerina, died in Moscow at age 88.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.C5)
1998 Mar 23, Pres. Yeltsin fired
prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet. Some cabinet
members were ordered to stay until replacements were named.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/13/99, p.A19)
1998 Mar 25, Russia promised to
support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not
support new sanctions urged by the US.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 27, Pres. Yeltsin
nominated acting Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko (35) to head the
government.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 28, In Moscow former
Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin announced his candidacy for the
presidential election in 2000.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 29, Andrei Klimentyev, a
controversial entrepreneur, won the mayoral election in Nizhny
Novgorod. The election was invalidated on Apr 1 and Klimentyev was
arrested on Apr 2 for instigating civil disobedience. He had been
convicted in 1997 of embezzling $2.5 million.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)
1998 Apr 1, Pres. Yeltsin
authorized the publication of classified documents relating to Josef
Stalin.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.C2)
1998 Apr 9, Some 1 million workers
across Russia protested against the government and called for the
resignation of Pres. Yeltsin. Unpaid wages and pensions were an
admitted major problem of the government.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 10, The Russian
Parliament rejected Pres. Yeltsin’s nominee, Sergei Kiriyenko, for
prime minister 186 to 143. Yeltsin renominated Kiriyenko and another
vote must take place within a week. In a speech to the Duma Kiriyenko
said that economic growth had stopped.
(SFC, 4/11/98, p.A6)
1998 Apr 16, A Russian army convoy
was ambushed near the Chechnya border. A general, 2 colonels and 3
soldiers were killed and Chechen militants were blamed.
(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 17, The parliament
rejected Yeltsin’s nomination of Sergei Kiriyenko for a 2nd time
271-115. Yeltsin immediately renominated Kiriyenko.
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A9)
1998 Apr 19, In Japan Pres.
Yeltsin held a summit with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hasimoto at the
Kawana resort. Yeltsin promised to had over KGB documents of
interrogations of captured Japanese generals from WW II.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 20, Three Russian
security agents met at a guest house outside Moscow to make an
extraordinary video in which they claimed their bosses had ordered them
to kill, kidnap and frame prominent Russians. In 2006 Alexander
Litvinenko, one of the 3 agents on the tape, was poisoned with a rare
radioactive isotope in London.
(AP, 5/23/07)(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.A14)
1998 Apr 24, After a month of
confrontation, Russian lawmakers caved in to President Boris Yeltsin,
approving acting prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko, 35, as premier
despite doubts about his relative youth and inexperience. Kiriyenko was
fired just four months later.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A1)(AP, 4/24/99)
1998 Apr 26, Former security chief
Alexander Lebed led Governor Valery Zubov in voting for governor in the
Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk.
(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A14)
1998 May 10, It was reported that
police had arrested 5 members of a crime ring that operated out of an
automobile repair shop. The ring responded to car for sale ads and
killed 11 people for their vehicles.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.A23)
1998 May 13, In Moscow a wall of
the Jewish Lubavitch Marina Roshcha synagogue was destroyed by a bomb.
It was another sign of rising anti-Semitism.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1998 May 17, Retired Gen’l.
Alexander Lebed was elected gov. of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
(SFC, 5/18/98, p.A10)
1998 May 19, Strikes by coal
miners, scientists and other workers spread across the country in a
demand for unpaid wages.
(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A12)
1998 May 24, Striking miners
lifted blockades along the trans-Siberian railway after officials
promised to pay back wages and help workers find new jobs.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1998 May 25, Fighting between
Abkhaz forces and Georgian irregulars raged inside a Russian patrolled
buffer zone despite an agreed 1993 cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.A1)
1998 May 26, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin signed an accord with King Harold V of Norway for the
dismantling and disposal of 90 nuclear submarines decaying in the
Barents Sea. Russia expected Norway to provide $30 million for the
project, which was expected to cost billions and take over a decade.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.C2)
1998 May 27, Russia tripled its
interest rates to 150% to stave off a run on the ruble and to establish
some economic stability.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A8)
1998 May 31, Pres. Clinton
endorsed additional conditional financial support for Russia from the
IMF and World Bank.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A9)
1998 Jun 1, In Russia the stock
market tumbled 10% in panic selling. Prime Minister Kiriyenko reduced
the auction cost for the sale of state’s Rosneft Oil Co. to $1.6 bil.
(SFC, 6/2/98, p.A11)
1998 Jun 2, Yeltsin held a meeting
with the country’s most powerful business leaders and urged them to
help keep investors from fleeing. Russian stocks rose 12%.
(SFC, 6/3/98, p.A12)
1998 Jun 3, The Kremlin announced
a crackdown on skinheads.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.T8)
1998 Jun 8, The number of AIDS was
reported to have quadrupled since 1996 to 8,313, mainly due to
intravenous drug-taking.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A14)
1998 Jun 8, Larisa Yudina (53), an
independent journalist in Kalmykia, was found dead in a pond with a
fractured skull and multiple stab wounds. She had pursued
investigations of corruption of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of
Kalmykia. The murder was called a political killing. Two aides of
Ilyumzhinov were later arrested by the police and confessed to the
killing. The aides were sentenced to 21-year prison terms.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A10)(SFC, 6/17/98, p.C2)(SFC,
11/30/99, p.D3)
1998 Jun 9, Yuri Yurkov, head of
the State Statistics Committee, was arrested with 2 top aides for
falsifying data to help corporations avoid taxes.
(SFC, 6/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Jun 10, The Russian market
fell for a 5th straight day and the government failed to sell enough
treasury bills to cover its short-term debt.
(SFC, 6/11/98, p.C2)
1998 Jun 17, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin named Anatoly Chubais as Russia’s chief liaison to the IMF.
Chubais was also reinstated as a deputy premier.
(WSJ, 6/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 17, Andrei Kozlenok, a
diamond merchant, was extradited from Greece to Russia, on charges of
stealing $180 million in gold and gems from the Russian government in
1992. Kozlenok used the money to set up shop in SF and then moved to
Belgium to avoid extradition.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B1)
1998 Jun 21, In Moscow a violent
storm left 6 dead and heavy damage to the Bolshoi Theater and the wall
of the Kremlin.
(SFC, 6/22/98, p.A10)
1998 Jun 21, In India a deal was
signed in New Delhi with Russia to build power plants for two nuclear
reactors.
(SFC, 6/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Jun 23, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin called for a package of emergency fiscal measures to bolster
the economy and threatened to dissolve parliament if the measures were
not quickly passed.
(SFC, 6/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jun 25, In Russia a balcony
collapsed at the Russian National Freestyle wrestling Competition in
Nalchik and killed 22 people.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.D2)
1998 Jun, The first module of an
int’l. space station, US funded and Russian-built, was to be launched
at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan. [it didn’t make it]
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A7)
1998 Jul 1, In Russia the Duma
approved 9 of 20 economic measures called for by Pres. Yeltsin. The
Russian market reached its lowest level in 25 months.
(SFC, 7/2/98, p.C2)
1998 Jul 2, The government ordered
Gazprom to pay 4.2 billion rubles in unpaid taxes and to start regular
tax payments. Gazprom is 40% owned by the government and threats were
made to seize the company. As part of the deal the government agreed to
pay billions of rubles for oil and gas used by government agencies. The
deal was estimated to be a wash.
(SFC, 7/3/98, p.D3)
1998 Jul 6, Kazakstan and Russia
signed an agreement that divided the northern part of the Caspian
seabed into Russian and Kazak sectors.
(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 13, The IMF announced a
$17.1 billion rescue package for Russia.
(SFC, 7/14/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 15, Three days of
ceremonies to bury Russia's last czar and his family, who were killed
by the Bolsheviks, began in the city of Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1998 Jul 16, The Russian
parliament agreed to a 5% sales tax.
(SFC, 7/17/98, p.A12)
1998 Jul 17, Nicholas II, Czar of
Russia, executed with his wife Alexandra, their five children and four
servants in 1918, was buried in St. Petersburg.
(SFC, 10/16/96, p.A10)(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A8)(AP,
7/17/99)
1998 Jul 19, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin decreed economic reforms that were rejected by his parliament
in order to obtain IMF funds to stabilize the ruble.
(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A9)
1998 Jul 20, Russia won an $11.2
billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help avert the
devaluation of its currency. Anatoly Chubais later admitted that he
lied to the IMF about the state of the Russian economy to get a $4.8
billion loan released.
(AP, 7/20/99)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 23, Russia planned to
sell its Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to India for some $2
billion. The ship was launched in 1982 as the Baku.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.D2)
1998 Jul 23, In Russia Vladimir
Dudintsev (79), writer, died. His work included "Not By Bread Alone"
and "White Garb." His work laid the foundation for a generation of
dissident writers.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.D8)
1998 Jul 27, It was reported that
Russia and Iran were supporting The Northern Alliance of rebel groups
fighting against the Taliban.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A9)
1998 Jul, Vladmir Putin was named
head of Russia’s FSB domestic intelligence agency.
(WSJ, 2/23/05, p.A14)
1998 Aug 3, Soviet composer Alfred
Schnittke (63) died in Germany. The Kronos Quartet released a 2-disk
recording "Alfred Schnittke: The Complete String Quartets" just weeks
before his death.
(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 10/18/98, DB p.49)
1998 Aug 6, Tax collectors raided
three biggest oil companies and demanded payment of over $150 million
in unpaid taxes.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A13)
1998 Aug 6, Alexander Smolensky,
banking tycoon and head of SBS-Agro, closed a deal to sell $1.2 billion
in Russian government bonds to Goldman Sachs Int’l. for about $500
million. The deal helped push jittery markets into a nose dive.
(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A1)
1998 Aug 13, George Soros, in a
letter to the Financial Times, called for the government of Russia to
devalue its currency by 15-25%. The government insisted that it would
not devalue and the ruble continued to drop.
(SFC, 8/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 14, Russia announced that
it would proceed with plans to regulate wolves with a planned poisoning
of 15,000.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A16)
1998 Aug 15, The Russian Soyuz
TM-28 ship docked in manual mode with the Mir space station. The new
crew was expected to stay to Feb.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A26)
1998 Aug 17, Russia devalued its
ruble and allowed the ruble's value to drop by up to 34 percent. It
also imposed delays in the repayment of billions of dollars in debt.
The government defaulted on $40 million in debt and provoked a stampede
of capital from emerging markets.
(SFC, 8/18/98, p.A6)(WSJ, 8/18/98, p.A1)(AP,
8/17/99)(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)
1998 Aug 23, Pres. Yeltsin
dismissed the Russian government. He fired Prime Minister Kiriyenko and
replaced him with Viktor Chernomyrdin the Soviet-style leader he'd
fired five months earlier. The move was said to have been orchestrated
by Boris Berezovsky, a wealthy financier.
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/98, p.A12)(AP,
8/23/99)
1998 Aug 25, The Russian
ruble fell 9% and the government introduced a plan to stretch out its
debts.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 26, The Russian ruble
fell another 5% as government attempts to support it failed.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 27, In Russia major banks
announced plans to merge and the government announced that it would
nationalize SBS-Agro, the 3rd largest bank in the country.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.A12)
1998 Aug 28, The Central Bank
placed SBS-Agro under temporary administration. The Central Bank
governor was fired soon afterwards.
(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)
1998 Aug, Russia planned to
deliver the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to the Greek Cypriot
government for about $200 million.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Sep 1, During a Kremlin
summit overshadowed by Russian economic and political upheaval,
President Clinton offered Boris Yeltsin a prescription for tough
reforms to lift the country from its crisis.
(AP, 9/1/99)
1998 Sep 1, In Russia the Duma
rejected the nomination by pres. Yeltsin for Viktor Chernomyrdin as
premier. Chernomyrdin said he would form a government without waiting
for parliamentary approval.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/2/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 2, Pres. Clinton met with
Pres. Yeltsin and held a news conference.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 2, Yuri Timoshenkov,
mayor of Nizhznevartovsk, was injured along with 2 bodyguards when a
bomb exploded near his car.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.C2)
1998 Sep 7, Russian lawmakers
rejected Boris Yeltsin's candidate for prime minister, Viktor
Chernomyrdin, for a second time, throwing the country into even deeper
political turmoil.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A1)(AP, 9/7/99)
1998 Sep 9, Pres. Yeltsin
nominated Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov to be prime minister.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.A15)
1998 Sep 10, The Duma supported
Yeltsin’s nomination of Yevgeny Primakov (68) as prime minister.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 11, The parliament
approved Yevgeny Primakov as Premier and Viktor Gerashchenko, a
Soviet-era banker, as chairman of the Central Bank. Primakov appointed
Yuri Maslyukov as his top deputy.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 11, Near Murmansk
security forces stormed a nuclear powered submarine and killed
Alexander Kusminykh (19), a conscript who had killed 8 of his fellow
crew members.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.C2)
1998 Sep 16, The ruble fell to
14-16 to the dollar in street trading. Two more economic moderates were
brought into the new cabinet.
(SFC, 9/17/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 18, Russia began using
bank reserves to help pay bank debts and pump new money into the
economy. Inflation was already running at 40% for the month.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C16)
1998 Sep 21, The central bank
began issuing 900 million new rubles valued at $55 million.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 22, The U.S. and Russia
agreed to help Russia privatize its nuclear program and stop the export
of scientists and plutonium.
(AP, 9/22/99)
1998 Sep 25, Alexander Shokhin
quit as the new top economic official.
(SFC, 9/26/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 28, Russia’s Justice
Ministry announced that it would release 115,000 prisoners to ease
over-crowding in its cash-strapped jails.
(SFC, 9/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep, Kalmykia hosted the 33rd
Chess Olympiad in its newly built $30 million Chess city. Although some
players refused to go over a 1000 showed up. The semi-autonomous
republic of Russia had a population of 320,000 and is located on the
Caspian Sea. Its capital was Elista and its president was Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov
(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 5, Some 1,000 mail cars
with up to 18 tons of letters were sidetracked due to the inability of
the post office to pay the country’s 17 railways.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 6, A nationwide
demonstration against overdue wages, inflation and lost jobs was
scheduled.
(SFC, 10/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 7, The anti-Yeltsin
protests turned out only some 600,000 people. Zyuganov said secret
police records indicated that 36 million people turned out for the
anti-Yeltsin demonstrations.
(SFC, 10/8/98, p.A12)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A7)
1998 Oct 9, Russia appealed to the
EU for relief aid in the face of its worst harvest in 45 years. The US
and Canada were also asked for help.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 14, Premier Primakov said
that the government has created a $600 million emergency food reserve.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 16, It was reported that
fires in Russia were burning in the Sikhote-Alin wildlife reserve and
threatened Siberian tigers of which only an estimated 450 remained.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 25, Algis Zhuraitis,
Lithuanian-born music conductor of the Bolshoi Theater, died at age 70.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.B6)
1998 Oct 31, The government
approved an economic plan that centered on tax cuts, bank rescues,
state intervention and printing more rubles.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A21)
1998 Nov 4, Russia announced that
would ask creditors to extend its foreign debt, scheduled at $3.5
billion this year and $17.5 billion in 1999. The worst harvest in 45
years was blamed on a summer drought.
(SFC, 11/5/98, p.C2)
1998 Nov 4, Ivan Orlov (65)
exploded his car in Red Square in a general protest against unpaid
pensions and the state. Three Kremlin guards were injured. Orlov was
jailed and died in prison on Dec 23 of heart failure.
(WSJ, 12/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 6, The government signed
a $625 million aid package with the US. Half the food would be free and
the other half paid back under a 20-year loan. A deal with foreign
creditors on debt was reached and an $800 million loan from Japan was
accepted.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A12)
1998 Nov 15, Yuri Luzhkov, mayor
of Moscow, said he would form his own political movement called
Fatherland, with free market principles and a strong state sector in
the economy. Dmitri Rogozin, a nationalist politician, was a founder of
Fatherland.
(SFC, 11/17/98, p.A7)(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A14)
1998 Nov 17, Agents of the Federal
Security Service (FSB) reported under cover that they had received
orders to kill billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky, and that they
were threatened with punishment if they spoke out.
(SFC, 11/18/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 20, In Kazakstan a
Russian Proton booster rocket lifted up the first stage of the new
int’l. space station called Zarya (Sunrise).
(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 11/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Nov 20, Galina Starovoitova,
a member of the State Duma, was shot to death in St. Petersburg. She
had recently formed a coalition called Northern Capital to push the
candidacy of liberals for the Dec. 6 elections to the regional
legislature. In June, 2005, two men were convicted of the actual
killing. Four others charged in the case were acquitted. In 2006 two
more men were convicted on charges relating to the murder. Vyacheslav
Lelyavin was sentenced to 11 years in prison for being a member of the
gang. Pavel Stekhnovsky, guilty of buying the rifle used to shoot
Starovoitova, was freed after prosecutors failed to prove he knew the
gun was intended for the killing.
(SFC, 11/21/98, p.A12)(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A26)(AP,
9/23/06)(AP, 9/29/06)
1998 Nov 21, It was reported that
an icy storm claimed 13 lives in Moscow over the last week.
(SFC, 11/21/98, p.A6)
1998 Nov 24, Russia, Kazakstan and
a group of major oil companies agreed to build a pipeline to connect
the Tengiz oil field to a Russian port on the Black Sea.
(SFC, 11/25/98, p.A16)
1998 Nov 29, Five Russian
policemen were killed in Dagestan by gunmen believed to be from
Chechnya.
(WSJ, 11/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov, Prime Minister Keizo
Obuchi of Japan in a summit with Pres. Yeltsin agreed to give Russia
close to $1 billion with $100 earmarked for the Kuriles.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A8)
1998 Dec 7, Pres. Yeltsin left the
hospital, fired several aides and returned to the hospital to recover
from pneumonia.
(WSJ, 12/8/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 16, The Parliament
approved a bill to print $1.2 billion worth of rubles for the last
quarter of 1998. High inflation was feared to result.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.C5)
1998 Dec 23, Anatoly Rybakov,
writer, died in New York at age 87. His work included "Children of
Arbat," written in 1966 but not published until 1987. His
anti-Stalinist novel, "Leto v Sosnyakakh" (Summer in Sosnyaki) was
published in 1964. His first novel was "Kortik" (The Dagger), which
established him in 1948 as a writer of adventure stories for children.
(SFC, 12/24/98, p.B2)
1998 Dec 23, The US and Russia
signed a $625 million food aid pact.
(WSJ, 12/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 25, Belarus Pres.
Lukashenko and Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin declared an agreement to
begin unifying their currencies and economies next year.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 27, The first group of 10
solid-fuel Topol-M missiles was to be inaugurated by Defense Minister
Igor Sergeyev. They were designed to replace the multiple warhead
missiles banned by START II.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A20)
1998 Robert Service published "A
History of Twentieth-Century Russia."
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A20)
1998 Dmitri Volkogonov published
"Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime."
He covered Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and
Gorbachev.
(WSJ, 4/15/98, p.A20)
1998 The Russian film "Brother"
starred Sergei Bodrov Jr. and was directed by Alexei Balabanov. It was
about a Russian soldier who becomes a gangland hitman.
(SFC, 11/20/98, p.C6)
1998 The Russian-French film
"Rothschild’s Violin" was featured in the 18th SF Film Festival. It was
directed by Edgardo Cozarinsky. It was based on an opera by Benjamin
Fleischmann, based on a Chekhov short story. Fleischmann died during
the siege of Leningrad and the opera was completed by Shostokovich.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, DB p.45)
1998-1999 America traced a series of computer
break-ins at the Pentagon, NASA and elsewhere to a computer in Russia,
which denied involvement.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.64)
1999 Jan 13-14, In Moscow
agreements were signed with Iraq to reinforce air defenses and upgrade
squadrons of MiG fighters. The $160 million deal had been reportedly
approved by Prime Minister Primakov on Dec 7.
(SFC, 2/15/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 21, Grigory Pasko (37),
in jail for 14 months, was put on trial for selling classified
information. He had reported on the disposal of radioactive waste in
the Sea of Japan. He was released in July.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 7/21/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 1, Prime Minister
Primakov promised to double subsidies to the coal industry to $520
million to placate angry miners.
(SFC, 2/2/99, p.A9)
1999 Feb 2, The top court banned
the death penalty until a jury system is adopted throughout the nation.
Police commandos also raided the Moscow headquarters of Sibneft, an oil
company believed to be controlled by financier Boris Berezovsky.
(WSJ, 2/3/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.A22)
1999 Feb 3, Moscow reported that
its year 2000 problems will cost $3 billion to repair.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 4, Russian astronauts on
Mir attempted to deploy a fan-like mirror made of plastic and coated
with aluminum for an 18 hour test. The test failed and another attempt
was planned. They failed again and abandoned the test.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A23)(SFC, 2/5/99, p.A7)(WSJ,
2/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 10, Police headquarters
in Samara burned down and killed at least 23 people. Organized crime
was suspected.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A17)(WSJ, 2/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 4, Pres. Yeltsin ordered
Boris Berezovsky to be fired from his job with the Commonwealth of
Soviet States.
(WSJ, 3/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 17, The Federal Council,
the upper house of parliament, defied Pres. Yeltsin's attempt to oust
Yuri Skuratov, the prosecutor general. Skuratove exposed the Central
Bank's secret transfer of hard currency reserves to the FIMAKO company
in the Channel Islands.
(SFC, 3/18/99, p.C3)
1999 Mar 19, In Russia at least 56
people were killed in an explosion in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, at an
outdoor bazaar. This was 2 days following a blast in neighboring
Ingushetia that destroyed 2 homes. The Federal Security Service put the
death toll at 63 with 104 injured.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A3)(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A20)(AP,
3/19/02)
1999 Mar 24, Russia denounced the
NATO attack on Serbia.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 26, The UN Security
Council defeated a Russian resolution demanding an immediate end to
NATO attacks on Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar, Maj. Gen. Gennady
Shpigun, Russian envoy, was kidnapped in Grozny. His remains were found
a year later in the village of Itum-Kale.
(SFC, 6/15/00, p.A15)
1999 Apr 2, Pres. Yeltsin ordered
the dismissal of Prosecutor Gen'l. Yuri Skuratov just hours after
Skuratoiv appeared on TV announcing that he had the names of Russian
officials who had illegally transferred dirty money into Swiss bank
accounts. Skuratov was earlier caught on video cavorting with 2
prostitutes.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 7, Chechen gunmen killed
4 Russian policemen patrolling the border near Stavropol.
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 9, Russia threatened to
take military action against NATO and considered an offer by Serbia to
form an alliance. Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of parliament, said that a
proposal was discussed to aim Russia's nuclear weapons at NATO
countries.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A13)
1999 Apr 10, Prime Minister
Primakov appealed to the lower house of the Duma to drop impeachment
proceedings against Pres. Yeltsin.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr 12, The parliament voted
to delay an vote of impeachment on Pres. Yeltsin.
(SFC, 4/13/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr 12, Yugoslavia's federal
parliament voted to join a political alliance with Russia and Belarus.
Igor Ivanov, the foreign minister of Russia, endorsed the proposal, but
the alliance existed for the most part only on paper.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A14)
1999 Apr 20, Russia defaulted on
$1.3 billion Ministry of Finance bonds.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A13)
1999 Apr 28, The IMF reached a
preliminary agreement with Russia for a $4.5 billion, that would not go
to Russia but work as an accounting measure to prevent default on money
already owed.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1999 Apr 29, Pres. Yeltsin
approved a plan for upgrading thousands of short-range or tactical
nuclear weapons.
(SFC, 4/30/99, p.D5)
1999 Apr 29, Pres. Yeltsin
approved a plan for upgrading thousands of short-range or tactical
nuclear weapons.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.D5)
1999 May 5, The Justice Ministry
granted registration to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.D2)
1999 May 6, Russia joined NATO to
back a framework for ending the conflict in Kosovo that included an
international security presence to enforce peace.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A1)
1999 May 11, The lower house set
impeachment proceedings against Pres. Yeltsin to begin the next day.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.A8)
1999 May 12, Pres. Yeltsin fired
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and named Sergei Stepashin, a top
police official, to head a new government.
(SFC, 5/13/99, p.A1)
1999 May 13, The lower house
opened impeachment proceedings against Pres. Yeltsin. Charges included
instigating the 1991 Soviet collapse; improper use of force against
hard-line lawmakers in 1993; launching the 1994-1996 war in Chechnya;
ruining the military; and imposing economic policies that impoverished
the country.
(SFC, 5/14/99, p.A1,18)
1999 May 15, The Communist-led
drive to impeach Pres. Yeltsin failed as nearly 100 members stayed away
from the balloting.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A1)
1999 May 15, Two Red Cross workers
were abducted in Nalchik, a town in the southern republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria. A Russian woman was released but Geraldo Cruz
Ribeiro of New Zealand was held by alleged Chechen gunmen.
(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A10)
1999 May 19, Sergei Stepashin was
approved as the new prime minister by the Duma 301 to 55.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A12)
1999 May 19, Ukrainian authorities
on 19 May 1999 arrested four Russian citizens who were attempting to
smuggle 20kg of “enriched uranium ore” to Western Europe.
(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1999 May 21, Pres. Yeltsin
reappointed several key members of the previous government to a new
Cabinet. He named Vladimir Rushailo as the interior minister and
Nikolai Aksyonenko as a first deputy prime minister. The media
described Rushailo and Aksyonenko as tools of Boris Berezovsky. Yeltsin
also signed permission to keep the Mir space station aloft pending
private financing.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 22, The new All Russia
Party was formed in St. Petersburg in the Tauride Palace. Gov. Vladimir
Yakovlev and Tatarstan Pres. Mintimir Shaimiyev gave the opening and
closing speeches. The party favored greater state control of the
economy, lower taxes and welfare policies that targeted the needy.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.A22)
1999 May 25, Pres. Yeltsin named
Mikhail Zadornov as the first deputy prime minister in charge of
economy and finance, as opposed to Alexander Zhukov, the choice of
Prime Minister Stepashin.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A10)
1999 Jun 2, Russia failed to make
a $908 million payment to the London Club of commercial creditors due
on some $26 billion in Soviet-era debt. Russia was expected to stay
current on debt accrued by the Russian government while restructuring
its Soviet-era obligations.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.A21)
1999 Jun 3, Pres. Yeltsin commuted
all the remaining death sentences (716). From 1995-1996 an average of
132 executions were performed with a shot to the back of the head.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.D2)
1999 Jun 10, A subway ceiling
collapsed and killed at least 5 people at St. Petersburg's Sennaya
Square stop.
(WSJ, 6/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 12, NATO troops began
entering Kosovo. They reached Pristina and confronted Russian soldiers
over control of the airport. A Russian armored column entered Pristina
before dawn to a heroes' welcome from Serb residents. 2 Serbs were
killed and a German soldier was wounded as peacekeepers moved into
Kosovo. 2 German journalists were killed near Stimlje by sniper fire.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.A1)(SFC, 6/14/99, p.A1)(AP,
6/12/04)
1999 Jun 18, In Chechnya the worst
fighting in months broke out as Chechen fighters attacked Russian
border posts in Dagestan. 7 men were killed and 15 wounded in separate
confrontations.
(SFC, 6/19/99, p.A10)
1999 Jun 18, The US and Russia
agreed on terms for Russian participation in Kosovo peacekeeping.
(SFC, 6/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 19, The G7 nations
pledged billions in aid to help Russia.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun 20, Pres. Clinton met
with Pres. Yeltsin in Germany and they agreed to rekindle efforts to
reduce their nuclear arsenals.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 29, In Chechnya Russian
security forces freed Herbert Gregg (51), an American missionary
kidnapped over 7 months ago. Part of his index finger had been cut off
in an attempt to extort ransom.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul 4, Troops were forced to
delay their departure for Kosovo after NATO blocked air corridors on
their route.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 cJul 5, Russian troops
attacked some 150 militants in Chechnya and a number of people were
killed.
(WSJ, 7/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 13, Nikita Krivchun (20)
stabbed Leopold Kaimovsky (52), director of the Jewish Cultural Center,
numerous times in Moscow.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.C10)
1999 Jul 16, A Russian supply ship
for Mir was launched from Baikomur in Kazakstan. It proceeded to
successfully dock with Mir.
(WSJ, 7/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 20, In Ingushetia Pres.
Ruslan Aushev declared that men could legally take up to 4 wives.
Russia declared the decree unconstitutional the next day.
(SFC, 7/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 23, Russia ended a
4-month boycott on contacts with NATO.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.C1)
1999 Jul 26, US and Russia agreed
to set up a 2nd hotline between the Sec. of State and the Russian
counterpart.
(WSJ, 7/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 28, The IMF approved a
$4.5 billion financial package to help keep Russia afloat through Dec.
parliamentary elections and presidential voting in June, 2000.
(SFC, 7/29/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul, The 21st Moscow Int'l.
Film Festival was held.
(SFC, 7/28/99, p.E5)
1999 Aug 2, Russian troops clashed
with Islamic fighters in Dagestan and 11 people were killed.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A20)
1999 Aug 4, The Fatherland Party
of Yuri Luzhkov merged with the governor's All Russia movement.
(SFC, 8/5/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 7, In Russia Islamic
fighters based in Chechnya seized at least 2 village in Dagestan.
Warlords Shamil Basayev and Wahabi commander Khattab were reported to
be involved. The Wahabi sect, a puritan branch of Sunni Islam, was
founded in the 18th century in Saudi Arabia.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A20)
1999 Aug 8, In southern Russia
federal forces opened fire from the ground and air on Islamic militants
in Dagestan. Prime minister Stepashin was in the capital Makhachkala.
The state is home to some 33 ethnic groups including Wahhabi militants
backed by Chechen commanders. Shamil Basayev, a Chechen militant,
declared Dagestan an independent Islamic state within days of seizing
several villages.
(SFC, 8/9/99, p.A11)(SFC, 8/14/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 9, Pres. Yeltsin fired PM
Stepashin and the whole cabinet and named Vladimir Putin, head of the
Federal Security Service, as acting prime minister.
(SFC, 8/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 10, In Dagestan the
Interior Ministry said 44 militants were killed and 80 wounded in
fighting with Russian forces.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 14, Russia bombed
guerrilla bases in Dagestan and Chechnya as 4 Russian soldiers were
killed and 13 wounded.
(SFEC, 8/15/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 8/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 16, Vladimir Putin was
confirmed as prime minister.
(SFC, 8/17/99, p.A8)
1999 Aug 17, Yevgeny Primakov
agreed to lead the Fatherland-All Russia Movement.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 17, Russia allowed the
ruble to drop in value by up to 34 percent.
(AP, 8/17/00)
1999 Aug 18, Russian forces lost 8
soldiers in Dagestan as they tried to storm Tando village.
(SFC, 8/19/99, p.D10)
1999 Aug 19, Japan and Russia
agreed to establish a military hotline.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.A19)
1999 Aug 19, Russian troops failed
to take the village of Tando in Dagestan and lost another 18 soldiers
and 3 helicopters.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.A18)
1999 Aug 20, Sergei Stepashin
planned to speak as the leader of a new coalition to succeed
Pres. Yeltsin that was to include Viktor Chernomyrdin and Sergei
Kiriyenko, all former prime ministers. Stepashin announced the next day
that the coalition failed and that he would run for a seat in
Parliament.
(SFC, 8/21/99, p.A10)(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.A18)
1999 Aug 22, Four small radical
political parties joined forces as the Stalinist Bloc led by Viktor
Anpilov, Yevgeny Dzugashvili (Stalin's grandson) and Gen'l. Stanislov
Terekhov.
(SFC, 8/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Aug 24, Sergei Kiriyenko,
Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada formed the Union Right-Wing Forces
Block.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A18)
1999 Aug 24, In Dagestan rebels
forces pulled back and Russian forces took control of 5 villages that
had been seized 3 weeks earlier.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A17)
1999 Aug 25, In Kyrgyzstan Boris
Yeltsin met with Jiang Zemin to forge a closer alliance to
counterbalance US global clout. The meeting preceded a 5-day Central
Asia summit. It was later reported that a deal was made for Russia to
sell 2 nuclear submarines to China.
(SFC, 8/26/99, p.A13)(WSJ, 9/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 27, The Russian Mir space
station was closed down as the last crew undocked.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 27, Investigators
suspected that at least 12 current or former Russian officials had
diverted $15 billion in IMF funds through 2 NY banks. It was reported
that an estimated $10 billion left the country illegally each year.
(USAT, 8/27/99, p.1A)(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 28, Three crewmen aboard
the "Mir" space station returned safely to Earth after bidding farewell
to the 13-year-old Russian orbiter. The Russian government had planned
to abandon Mir in 2000 because of a shortage of funds, but later
extended its mission.
(AP, 8/28/00)
1999 Aug 30, Russia reported four
soldiers killed and 5 wounded from fighting in Dagestan.
(WSJ, 8/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 31, A bomb exploded in a
video game parlor in the Manezh shopping mall near the Kremlin and at
least 30 people were injured. A leaflet was left by the Union of
Revolutionary Writers that said in part: "Consumer, we do not like your
way of life…"
(SFC, 9/1/99, p.A16)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 2, A TV network was
forced off the air by the new media ministry after a report on a
political party led by Yeltsin and Boris Nemtsov.
(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 3, Boris Yeltsin and his
daughters were reported to be under investigation for taking bribes
from Mabetex, an Italian firm that renovated the Kremlin.
(SFC, 9/4/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 4, In Dagestan a car bomb
killed at least 22 people at a Russian military housing block in
Buinaksk. The death toll son expanded to 64. Russian officials believed
that Khattab, a Jordanian operating in Chechnya, ordered the bombing.
In 2000 5 suspects were charged in the bombing. In 2001 six men were
convicted. In 2004 Magomed Salikhov was arrested in Baku for his role
in the bombing. In Feb, 2006, Salikhov was acquitted of organizing the
explosion, but was sentenced to over 4 years in prison for membership a
rebel group. The Russian Supreme Court overturned the acquittal on June
15 and ordered the investigation to be reopened. A Dagestan jury
acquitted Salikhov on Nov 10.
(SFC, 9/6/99, p.A12)(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A12)(SFC,
9/8/99, p.A16)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.C1)(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A11)(AP,
11/13/04)(AP, 6/15/06)(AP, 11/11/06)
1999 Sep 5, In Dagestan several
thousand rebels began a 2nd siege from Chechnya.
(SFC, 9/6/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 6, Russian soldiers in
Ranilug, Kosovo, killed 3 Serbs who fired on them and refused to stop
beating 2 ethnic Albanians.
(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 6, In Dagestan Russian
forces used artillery and air power against rebel guerrillas and 2
dozen people were killed on the Chechen side of the border. Fighting in
NoIvolakskoye left 14 Russian soldiers dead.
(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 9, An explosion shattered
a 9-story apartment building in Moscow and at least 14 people were
killed. A natural gas leak was suspected, but a bomb was not ruled out.
The death toll moved up to 90 with 249 injured and officials said it
was caused by a terrorist bomb. [see Dec 29, 2003]
(SFC, 9/9/99, p.A12)(SFC, 9/10/99, p.A12)(SFC,
9/11/99, p.A9)
1999 Sep 9, In Dagestan Russia
lost a Su-25 combat jet.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)
1999 Sep 12, In Dagestan Russian
troops seized control of the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi.
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A13)
1999 Sep 13, In Moscow a suspected
bomb blast destroyed an apartment building and at least 28 people were
killed. Rescuers later pulled 118 bodies from the ruins of the 8-story
building. [see Dec 29, 2003]
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A10)(SFC, 9/14/99, p.A12)(SFC,
9/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 15, In southern Russia a
truck exploded next to a 9-story apartment building in the Rostov
region and at least 11 people were killed. Chechen terrorists were
again blamed. The bomb in Volgodonsk killed at least 17.
(SFC, 9/16/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 16, Pres. Yeltsin ordered
the Dagestan border sealed against the 1,500 Chechen militants massed
there. Moscow police reported the discovery of a cache of 3.5 metric
tons of explosive powder hidden among sacks of sugar from southern
Russia.
(WSJ, 9/17/99, p.A1,13)
1999 Sep 18, Russian forces
attacked rebel targets in Chechnya to prevent guerrilla raids in
Dagestan.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 20, Raisa Gorbachev, wife
of last Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, died of leukemia at age 67.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A11)
1999 Sep 22, A bombing attempt was
made in Ryazan, western Russia. The people arrested were not Chechens
and later pronounced to be Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on a
training exercise.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A22)(http://piurl.com/5K)
1999 Sep 23, In Chechnya Russian
fighter jets bombed targets in and around Grozny. The Chechen
government said that it does not support Islamic militants and that it
would retaliate against Russian attacks on its territory.
(SFC, 9/24/99, p.A16)
1999 Sep 24, In Chechnya tens of
thousands of civilians fled Grozny as Russian planes continued to bomb
the capital to wipe out Islamic militants accused of terrorizing Russia.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A13)
1999 Sep 25, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes knocked out local TV and mobile phones and forced thousands
of civilians to flee Grozny. 7 people were reported killed and 24
wounded. An estimated 100,000 crowded the border crossing to Ingushetia.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.A23)
1999 Sep 27, In Chechnya Russian
jets dropped bombs for a 5th day and thousands of civilians fled to
towns and villages in the region. Some 300 people were reported killed
in the air strikes around Grozny.
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 28, In Chechnya 8 people
were killed when a schoolhouse was bombed on the 6th day of Russian air
attacks. Some 60,000 people had reportedly fled to the neighboring
regions of Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and Stavropol.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 29, Russia demanded that
Chechnya condemn terrorism and extradite the criminals responsible for
the bombings in Russia.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 30, It was reported that
official graft in Russia cost the state as much as $20 billion a year.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 30, Russian troops began
a ground offensive into Chechnya aimed at creating a buffer zone to
block the infiltration of Chechen guerrillas.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.D5)
1999 Sep, In "Operation Whirlwind"
over 11,000 bombing suspects were arrested, most of them because they
had dark skin and might come from the Caucasus.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.A15)
1999 Sep, Tamerlan Khasaev and
fellow Chechens under orders killed 6 Russian conscripts who had
surrendered. The killings were videotaped.
(WSJ, 7/23/02, p.A12)
1999 Oct 1, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin cut ties with the elected government of Chechnya.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 2, The US and Russia
opened a new video-conferencing center in Moscow to allow real-time
links with the White House.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 2, Russian troops engaged
Chechen guerrilla defenders as armored columns rolled into the villages
of Alpatova and Chernokosova.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 4, Prime Minister Putin
planned to resettle thousands of Chechens in areas under Russian
control, an indication that Moscow planned to split Chechnya in two.
Chechen fighters shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24 warplane that was
searching for another downed plane.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 5, In Chechnya Russian
troops seized the northern third of the country. A suspected Russian
artillery shell hit a busload of people and killed 40 people, mostly
women and children.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 6, The Chechen president
called for a holy war against Russia.
(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 7, In Chechnya Russian
planes bombed the village of Elistanzhi and 32 people were reported
killed with 60 injured and 200 houses destroyed.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 11, In Chechnya more
people fled Russian attacks and Moscow rebuffed a peace overture and
demanded that Islamic militants be handed over before any peace
settlement.
(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 14, In Chechnya the
Russians pressed an offensive below the Terek River as the Chechens
rallied in Grozny.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, In Chechnya Russian
rockets hit and market and 2 other sites in Grozny and as many as 140
people were killed.
(SFC, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 24, In Chechnya Russian
artillery and jet bombers killed at least 27 people during a dawn
attack at Serzhen-Yurt.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 27, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes and artillery closed in on Grozny and 100 people were killed
and some 200 wounded.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 29, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes and artillery launched fierce strikes and 25 refugees were
killed while trying to flee the assaults.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A26)
1999 Oct, Igor Sutyagin, a Russian
scholar, was arrested on charges that he sold information on nuclear
submarines and missile warning systems to a British company, that
Russian investigators said was a CIA cover. Sutyagin was found guilty
of espionage in 2004.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.A6)
1999 Nov 4, Russia allowed
thousands of refugees to flee Chechnya and the crossing at the
Sleptsovskaya border reached 500 people per hour.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 7, In Chechnya Russian
soldiers dislodged rebels in Bamut. 38 civilians were reported killed
along with 28 Chechen fighters.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C14)
1999 Nov 9, Russia’s PM Vladimir
Putin named Dmitry Medvedev first deputy chief of staff to prime
minister.
(WSJ, 2/28/08, p.A14)
1999 Nov 12, In Chechnya Russian
forces took control of Gudermes and proposed to move the capital there
from Grozny.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 15, The finance minister
announced that he would request the Western commercial banks to cancel
$12 billion in Soviet-era debt and reschedule another $18 billion in
exchange.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 18, The UN high
commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, visited Chechen refugee camps
in Ingushetia. Some 215,000 refugees had fled Russian attacks.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 21, In Chechnya some
5,000 rebels barricaded themselves in Grozny in preparation for a
Russian offensive.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov 23, An agreement between
Georgia and Russia was announced to cut the number of Russian forces
over the next few years.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 25, In Chechnya Russian
forces fired hundreds of rockets into Grozny in its fiercest assault in
the 3-month offensive.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 26, Russian commanders
announced that they would begin pursuing Chechen guerrilla forces into
their mountain hideouts.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 27, In Chechnya residents
reported 260 civilian deaths in Grozny since the beginning of Russian
assaults 2 days earlier.
(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A19)
1999 Nov, The Kremlin appointed
Beslan Gantamirov (36) as head of the pro-Moscow Chechen State Council.
Gantamirov was just pardoned by Pres. Yeltsin and released from a
6-year sentence for embezzling federal funds to rebuild Chechnya in
1995-96.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.D1)
1999 Nov, The Central Bank ordered
the state agency, Arco, to seize ABS-Agro. Foreign creditors in 2000
were offered one cent to the dollar.
(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 1, The Duma passed a bill
that vastly increased the powers of security services to combat
terrorism and civil disturbances.
(WSJ, 12/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 3, In Chechnya some 250
Russian soldiers were reported killed by rebels south of Grozny.
Separately as many as 40 Chechen civilians were killed when Russian
troops fired on a refugee convoy.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 4, In Chechnya Russian
troops pillaged the Alkhan-Yurt village 10 miles southwest of Grozny
and killed 17 civilians.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 8, Russia and Belarus
signed a 3rd union agreement. It proposed combining currencies by 2005
and the introduction of a joint tax system in 2001.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 8, In Chechnya Russian
forces ousted rebels from Urus-Martan.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 10, In China Pres.
Yeltsin of Russia and Pres. Jiang Zemin ended a 2-day summit and
swapped pledges of support for Chechnya and Taiwan.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 11, In Chechnya Russian
forces halted attacks on Grozny to give an estimated 10-40,000
civilians a chance to leave. An estimated 4,000 rebel fighters were
holed up there.
(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 15, In Chechnya at least
115 Russian soldiers were killed by rocket propelled grenades fired by
Chechen guerrillas in Grozny.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/17/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 19, Parliamentary
elections were held. The Communist Party led with over24% of the vote.
4 of the next 5 parties were centrist groups with Unity at 23.2%.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C9)
1999 Dec 25, Russian forces
launched an attack on Grozny led by 700 pro-Moscow Chechen volunteers.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 31, Russia’s Pres.
Yeltsin (68) announced his resignation and handed power over to PM
Putin. Yeltsin approved a law just before resigning that required
presidential candidates to collect 1 million registered signatures to
win a place on the next ballet. Putin flew to Chechnya and vowed to
pursue terrorists everywhere.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/1/08,
p.54)
1999 Martin Malia published
"Russia Under Western Eyes," a historical look at the destiny of Russia.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A16)
1999 Christopher Andrew and Vasili
Mitrokhin published "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive
and the Secret History of the KGB."
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)
1999 Russia passed legislation
that created SORM-2, a Russian acronym for the system of Operative and
Investigative procedures. It required every Internet service provider
to install monitoring equipment that allowed access by Russian security
agencies.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A1)
1999 US authorities uncovered a
money laundering scheme that involved the Bank of New York and its
branch in Russia. In 2000 Lucy Edwards and her husband Peter Berlin
pleaded guilty to fraud charges. In 2005 the bank agreed to pay $14
million in fines directly related to the Russia scandal and to adopt
antifraud overhauls. In 2007 Russia sued the Bank of New York for $22.5
billion for its role in the money laundering scheme.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A3)
1999 Sakhalin Energy, a Shell-led
enterprise, began pumping oil off the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island
in the Sea of Okhotsk. Sakhalin Energy at this time did not involve
Russian firms.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.74)
1999 Some 63,092 Russians died of
lung or throat cancer, and 90% was blamed on smoking. 2,355,658 people
died of cardiac disease and 25% was blamed on smoking.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D3)
1999 Russia’s number of normal
births declined to 30% from 45.3 in 1992.
(SFC, 10/6/00, p.D6)
1999 The Ford Motor Co. began
operating a small assembly plant near St Petersburg, Russia, while GM
set up a joint venture with Avtovaz (at the time a byword for
corruption and gangsterism).
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.7)
2000 Jan 3, In Beirut, Lebanon,
assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Russian Embassy. One
police officer and one attacker were killed.
(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 3, Acting Pres. Putin
fired Tatyana Dyachenko, the daughter of Boris Yeltsin and Kremlin
image advisor.
(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 7, Russia announced a
suspension of aerial bombardment in Grozny to allow civilians to
escape. A military shakeup was also announced.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 9, In Chechnya rebels
attacked Russian positions in Argun, Shali and Gudermes as Russia
continued a bombing halt for the Orthodox Christmas.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 11, Acting Pres. Putin
announced a 20% increase in pensions ahead of the Mar 26 elections.
(SFC, 1/12/00, p.A11)
2000 Jan 14, Russia published the
21-page "Concept on National Security" that detailed the scenarios
under which it would use nuclear weapons.
(SFC, 1/15/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 15, Gennady Zyuganov and
Grigory Yavlinsky joined the presidential race.
(SFEC, 1/16/00, p.A16)
2000 Jan 16, Mikhail Kasyanov, the
First Deputy Prime Minister, said that the economy was weak and that it
would take 3-4 years to regain the strength it had in 1997.
(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 16, In Chechnya Russian
warplanes bombarded the area around Grozny and federal forces reported
120 rebels killed. Islamic militants reported at least 18 civilians
killed.
(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 17, Russian aircraft and
artillery bombed Grozny with a record number of attacks.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A8)
2000 Jan 18, In Moscow 4 parties
walked out of the Duma to protest parliamentary agreements between the
pro-Putin Unity Party and the Communists.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A18)
2000 Jan 18, In Chechnya Russian
troops began moving through the streets of Grozny in the most intense
ground attack in 4 months.
(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 18, In Chechnya Russian
Gen. Mikhail Malofeyev went missing in Grozny following an ambush and
rebel commanders later reported that they had him captured.
(SFC, 1/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Jan 23, In Chechnya rebels
ambushed Russian troops in Staraya Sunzha village and 8 soldiers were
killed. The body of Gen. Mikhail Malofeyev was found in Grozny. A
Chechen commander denied reports that Pres. Maskhadov was wounded.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jan 25, The Russian
government announced that 1,055 servicemen had been killed and 3,206
wounded in Chechnya since Oct 1.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A13)
2000 Feb 1, In Chechnya rebel
fighters suffered heavy losses to Russian troops and some 2000 broke
out of Grozny to rejoin fellow rebels in the south. Some 600 rebels
were killed or wounded when they crossed a Russian mine field following
a $100,000 proposed bribe. Commanders Shamil Basayev, Aslanbek Ismailov
and Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov were among the dead.
(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A14)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 3, In Chechnya the
Russian military traded Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky to
Chechen rebels in exchange for 3 Russian soldiers.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 3, The US Navy in the
Straits of Hormuz took control of a Russian tanker, Volgoneft-147, on
suspicion that is was smuggling oil from Iraq in violation of US
sanctions. Tests showed the oil came from Iraq and it was forced to
discharge the oil in Oman.
(SFC, 2/4/00, p.D6)(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 4, Former Prime Minister
Yevgeny Primakov dropped out of the presidential race.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 4, Russians forces began
bombing Katyr Yurt after Chechen rebels arrived from Grozny. The
bombing lasted for 2 days, well after the rebels fled, and at least 170
civilians were killed. Later reports said 343 refugees were killed.
(SFC, 2/15/00, p.A13)(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 5, In Chechnya the Human
Rights Watch group said it had documented 22 cases in which Grozny
residents were killed by Russian soldiers. Another 14 cases were under
investigation. Later reports indicated 82 civilians were killed by
Russian mercenaries (kontraktniki).
(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A25)(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A9)
2000 Feb 6, Acting Pres. Putin
announced that federal forces had scored a major victory in Chechnya.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 7, In Chechnya Russian
forces reported that hundreds of rebels had been killed over the last 2
days near the villages of Katyr-Yurt and Shaami-Yurt.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Feb 10, The government
announced that it would raise the minimum price for a bottle of vodka
by 30% at the end of the month.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 13, Vladimir Putin signed
a decree to re-establish the "special departments" (FSB) to seek out
political disloyalty in the military.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.D3)
2000 Feb 14, Seven mountain
climbers, including 3 Britons, were reported killed in an avalanche in
the Caucasus Elbrus Range near the Georgia border.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.D3)
2000 Feb 14, In Chechnya Russian
commanders ordered Grozny sealed and its population evacuated in order
to clear bombs and booby-traps. Oleg Blotsky, a Russian journalist,
made a video tape of dead Chechens at Roshni-Chu and Urus-Martan. The
video was given to N24, a German TV station, and broadcast on Feb 25.
(SF, 2/15/00, p.A12)(SFC, 2/26/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 16, Russia and NATO
announced a resumption of contacts that were broken in Mar 1999 due to
NATO bombing in Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.D3)
2000 Feb 16, In NYC Lucy Edwards
(41), a former bank of New York executive, and her husband, Peter
Berlin (46), pleaded guilty to laundering over $7 billion from Russian
bankers in exchange for $1.8 million.
(SFC, 2/17/00, p.A9)
2000 Feb 17, Russia was accused by
human rights groups and refugees of brutality toward Chechens in
camps. Vladimir Putin named Vladimir Kalamanov, the head of the
migration service, to look into allegations of torture, rape and
executions by Russian soldiers against Chechen civilians. Separately
Zhirinovsky was barred by electoral authorities from the presidential
ballot.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 2/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 18, In Chechnya rebels
shot down a Russian helicopter and 15 men were killed.
(SFEC, 2/20/00, p.A32)
2000 Feb 20, Anatoly Sobchak,
former law professor and mayor of St. Petersburg, died at age 62.
(SFC, 2/23/00, p.A19)
2000 Feb 25, Journalist Andrei
Babitsky turned up alive in Dagestan. He was held by Russians in a
detention center in Makhachkala.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.A20)
2000 Feb 29, In Chechnya 84
Russian paratroopers were killed after rebels attacked a guard post
near Ulus Kert. Most of the soldiers were from Pskov. Many were
suspected to have died from Russian artillery called in after the
position was overrun.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 2, In Chechnya rebels
ambushed Russian troops outside Grozny and killed at least 20 police
commandos.
(SFC, 3/4/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 5, Acting Pres. Putin
said that Russia would consider joining NATO if it were treated as an
equal partner.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 6, In Chechnya some 30
rebels held positions at Komsomolskoye's mosque under Russian shelling.
50 Russian troops were reported killed in the last 2 days.
(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 9, In Moscow A Yak-40
aircraft crashed on takeoff from Sheremetyevo Airport and all 9 people
aboard were killed. Among the dead were journalist Artyom Borovik and
oil executive Ziya Bazhayev.
(SFC, 3/9/00, p.A11)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D5)
2000 Mar 12, Russian agents
captured Salman Raduyev, a Chechen warlord.
(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A8)
2000 Mar 23, Russia's food supply
was threatened with a virulent strain of potato blight and live-stock
feed shortages were forecast.
(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 26, Russia elected
Vladimir Putin as its 2nd post-Communist president with 52.5% vote.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 26, In Chechnya Russian
Col. Yuri Budanov and 3 soldiers seized Elza (Heda) Kungayeva (18) and
strangled her to death following a pummeling and sexual assault. She
was believed to be a rebel sniper. In 2001 Budanov faced a trial and in
2002 he was ruled temporarily insane. In 2009 Budanov was freed with
more than a year left on his murder sentence.
(SSFC, 3/18/01, p.D5)(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A9)(AP, 1/19/09)
2000 Mar 29, In Chechnya rebels
ambushed Russian troops and left 4 dead and 18 wounded. 27 men were
missing.
(WSJ, 3/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 31, Pres. Putin called
for a quick ratification of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty
and deeper cuts in nuclear missiles.
(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 1, In Chechnya Russian
soldiers found 33 of their missing comrades. 32 were dead and
booby-trapped from the Mar 30 rebel attack.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A20)
2000 Apr 3, Two cosmonauts were
scheduled to lift off for the Mir space station.
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 5, The FSB arrested a US
businessman for suspected espionage after he allegedly bought
information on defense technology from Russian scientists. Edmond Pope
was later identified as a retired navy captain working for Pennsylvania
State Univ. in applied research. The key witness against Pope recanted
his testimony in Nov.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A12)(USAT, 4/7/00, p.6A)(SFC,
11/11/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 6, Two Russian cosmonauts
docked with Mir. The destruction of the space station was delayed after
MirCorp. of Amsterdam agreed to pay $10-20 million to lease commercial
rights.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D2)
2000 Apr 14, The Duma passed the
START II Arms Treaty.
(SFC, 4/15/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 16, The winners of the
Goldman Environmental Prize included: Vera Mischenko (47) for
environmental legal work in Russia.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.A2)
2000 Apr 17, In England Russia’s
Pres. Putin met with Tony Blair and promised to implement economic
reforms and root out corruption. Putin looked for closer ties with
Europe despite differences over Chechnya.
(WSJ, 4/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 20, In Chechnya Pres.
Maskhadov told a Russian news agency that he had declared a unilateral
cease-fire. Maskhadov later said his remarks meant that fighting would
stop only if both sides agreed to stop fighting and negotiate a
settlement.
(WSJ, 4/21/00, p.A1)(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 21, The lower house of
parliament ratified the Comprehensive test Ban Treaty, which the US
Senate rejected in 1999.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 21, The Russian Coast
Guard fired on a Japanese fishing boat near the disputed Kurile Islands
and took it back to Yuzhno-Kurilsk island.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A8)
2000 Apr 22, In Chechnya
guerrillas attacked a Russian convoy and killed 15 soldiers near
Serzhen-Yurt.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 24, It was reported that
officially 5000 new AIDS cases were registered in Irkutsk, Russia, over
the last year along with 8,500 heroin addicts. 40% of Russian
prostitutes were reported to be HIV-positive.
(SFC, 4/24/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 26, In Chechnya Russian
troops were ambushed near Serzhen-Yurt. 17 rebels and 10 Russians were
reported killed.
(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D3)
2000 May 3, In Chechnya Russian
troops ambushed a rebel band and killed at least 18 men.
(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.A1)
2000 May 7, Pres. Putin was
inaugurated. He named Mikhail Kasyanof as the prime minister and
pledged to restore the country to world-power status.
(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A1)
2000 May 11, Chechen rebels
ambushed a Russian troop convoy west of Chechnya and killed 18 soldiers.
(SFC, 5/12/00, p.D3)
2000 May 11, Masked police raided
the offices of Media Most, the country’s largest private media company
and outspoken critic of Pres. Putin.
(WSJ, 5/12/00, p.A1)
2000 May 12, Igor Domnikov (42), a
reporter for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, was found in a pool of blood at
his Moscow apartment building. Domnikov died July 16. In 2007 a court
in the city of Kazan sentenced four men to life in prison, and three
others to prison terms ranging from 18 to 25 years after finding them
guilty of killing 23 men, including Domnikov, and of eight kidnappings.
The convicted gang's leader Eduard Tagiryanov, who was sentenced to
life, told the court that Domnikov's killing had been ordered by former
deputy governor of western Lipetsk region Sergei Dorovsky for a series
of critical articles on his policies.
(www.cpj.org/protests/01ltrs/Russia08jan01pl.html)(WSJ, 12/8/06,
p.A12)(AP, 8/31/07)
2000 May 12, In Chechnya Russian
forces staged two ambush attacks on rebels and claimed 41 killed.
(SFC, 5/13/00, p.A9)
2000 May 13, Pres. Putin divided
Russia’s 89 regions into 7 federal districts headed by a Kremlin
representative.
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A1)
2000 May 22, Russia asserted that
Afghanistan’s Taliban had signed an agreement with Chechen rebels and
that it might launch air strikes against Afghanistan.
(SFC, 5/23/00, p.A10)
2000 May 25, Pres. Putin unveiled
a new plan to revive the economy that included a flat 13% income tax.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.A15)
2000 May 28, Pres. Putin signed
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It would not be effective
until the US and other nations also approve.
(SFC, 5/29/00, p.A14)
2000 May, Pres. Putin declared
direct rule over Chechnya from Moscow. Former Chechen cleric Akhmad
Kadyrov was appointed as administrative head.
(USAT, 9/2/04, p.13A)
2000 May, The new US Embassy
unofficially opened in Moscow.
(SFC, 7/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 2, Pres. Putin proposed
an anti-rocket defense system for Europe created by Russia, Europe and
NATO.
(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A13)
2000 Jun 2, Svyatoslav Fyodorov,
the pioneer of radial keratotomy, died in Moscow at age 72.
(SFC, 6/3/00, p.A23)
2000 Jun 3, Pres. Clinton met with
Russia’s Pres. Putin in Moscow and began discussions on trade and arms
control.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 4, Pres. Clinton and
Pres. Putin agreed to each dispose 34 metric tons of weapons-grade
plutonium and to establish a military center in Moscow for US and
Russian officers to share early warning data on missile and space
launches. Clinton then answered questions from the public at the Ekho
Moskvy radio station.
(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A1,8)
2000 Jun 5, Pres. Putin traveled
to Italy and met with Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. Putin then met
with Pope John Paul II.
(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A13)
2000 Jun 8, Pres. Putin took
personal control over Chechnya. A provisional government was planned
headed by a Kremlin-appointed official.
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.A14)
2000 Jun 12, Akhmad Kadyrov, a
Muslim cleric, was appointed by Pres. Putin to head the administration
in Chechnya.
(SFC, 6/13/00, p.A10)
2000 Jun 13, In Moscow Vladimir
Gusinsky, head of Media-Most, was arrested on charges of swindling and
grand larceny.
(SFC, 6/14/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 15, Grigory Gorin,
playwright, humorist and screenwriter, died at age 60. His plays
included "Requiem" and "Royal Games." His films included "The One and
Only Munchausen" and "Formula for Love."
(SFC, 6/22/00, p.C2)
2000 Jun 16, Pres. Putin proposed
a Moscow-based early warning center for missile launches around the
world.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A8)
2000 Jun 16, Media mogul Vladimir
Gusinsky was released from jail but swindling and theft charges were
maintained.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A8)
2000 Jun 20, The prosecutor’s
office filed to reverse the privatization of Norilsk Nickel, the
largest metal company, controlled by oligarch Vladimir Potanin.
(SFC, 6/21/00, p.A14)
2000 Jun 25, The military declared
that air and artillery attacks in Chechnya had been suspended. The next
day the Kremlin said that attacks would continue.
(SFC, 6/26/00, p.A10)
2000 Jun 27, In Chechnya 2 days of
fighting left 12 Russians dead and up to 60 rebels killed according to
Russian officials.
(SFC, 6/29/00, p.C6)
2000 Jun 28, The Kremlin issued a
plan to overhaul the economy. Separately the upper house of parliament,
the Federation Council, voted down a proposal by Pres. Putin to disband
it.
(SFC, 6/29/00, p.C6)
2000 Jun 30, The lower house voted
to give pres. Putin the right to fire any of the nation’s 89 governors
for cause.
(SFC, 7/1/00, p.A13)
2000 Jun 30, In Chechnya Russian
Gen. Gennady Troshev said that a 5-day firefight at Serzhen-Yurt was
over and that over 100 rebels were killed.
(SFC, 7/1/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 2, In Chechnya rebels
staged 5 suicide attacks against Russian forces. One bomb killed 31
elite OMON police troops as they slept in their barracks at Argun.
(SFC, 7/4/00, p.A8)
2000 Jul 8, Pres. Putin made his
first state of the nation address and called for increased power to the
central government to overcome a bleak diagnosis of the country’s ills.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.C11)
2000 Jul 9, A bomb attack at a
food market in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia left 5 people dead. Another
bomb in a department store at the port of Rostov-on-Don on the Black
Sea left 2 people dead.
(SFC, 7/10/00, p.A9)
2000 Jul 10, Oleg Belonenko,
director of the Uralmashzadov machine-tool manufacturing operation, was
killed by 2 gunmen in Yekaterinburg.
(SFC, 7/11/00, p.A10)
2000 Jul 11, Prime Minister
Kasyanov warned business barons that the immunity they enjoyed under
the Yeltsin government was over. Lukoil was charged with tax evasion
and the offices of Gazprom and media-Most were raided in a fraud case.
Also the head of RAO Norilsk Nickel was told to pay $140 million extra
for his controlling stake.
(WSJ, 7/12/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 17, Boris Berezovsky
planned to resign his seat in the Duma and launch an opposition
movement against Pres. Putin.
(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 7/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 18, Chinese Pres. Jiang
Zemin and Russia’s Pres. Putin denounced the US proposed missile
defense program as a violation of the 1972 ABM treaty. They also vowed
to strengthen a strategic partnership between their countries.
(SFC, 7/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Jul 19, In North Korea
Russia’s Pres. Putin met with Kim Jong Il. Kim promised to abandon his
missile program if other states provide technology for "peaceful space
research.’
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 19, The Duma passed
legislation that gave Pres. Putin the right to fire provincial
governors and took away the governor’s automatic immunity and
membership in the Federation Council.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A16)
2000 Jul 19, In Chechnya 7 Russian
servicemen were killed in 4 Russian-controlled areas.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.B10)
2000 Jul 21, In Chechnya 4 Russian
soldiers were killed when a land mine blew up their truck in the Shali
region.
(SFC, 7/22/00, p.C1)
2000 Jul 21, Nineteen Russian
airmen were killed when a Mi-8 helicopter crashed north of St.
Petersburg.
(SFC, 7/22/00, p.C1)
2000 Jul 26, In Russia a tax
reform bill was passed that scrapped the graduated income tax in favor
of a 13% flat tax.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A10)
2000 Jul 27, In Chechnya 74
bodies, mostly men, were removed from a mass grave near Tangi-Chu. As
many as 80 more remained.
(SFC, 7/28/00, p.A12)
2000 Jul, Alexander Smolensky
became chairman of STB-Card, formerly owned by SBS-Agro.
(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 4, It was reported that
the war in Chechnya had killed 2,508 Russian soldiers since 8/2/99. A
mother’s group put the figure up to 6,000.
(WSJ, 8/4/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 4, Russia reported that
Chechen rebels had decapitated 2 Russian colonels, who had been seized
earlier in the Vedeno region.
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.C1)
2000 Aug 6, Russian officials
reported that scores of rebels were killed in weekend artillery attacks
outside Grozny, Chechnya, following warnings of a possible rebel
offensive. As many as 160 insurgents were reported killed.
(SFC, 8/7/00, p.A12)(SFC, 8/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 7, Chechen rebels claimed
11 Russian soldiers in a military convoy were killed by a remote
controlled mine.
(SFC, 8/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 8, In Russia a bomb
exploded through an underground walkway in Moscow’s Pushkin
Square and at least 13 people were killed. Another bomb was found and
defused.
(SFC, 8/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 8/8/01)
2000 Aug 12, A Russian nuclear
submarine, the Kursk, became trapped on the floor of the Barents Sea
during naval exercises. 118 sailors were trapped in the Oscar-II class
submarine that was thought to have suffered a torpedo-room explosion.
On August 21 Norwegian divers confirmed that all the sailors had died.
The Kursk was raised in 2001.
(SFC, 8/14/00, p.A13)(SFC, 8/15/00, p.A1)(WSJ,
8/15/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/16/00, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/9/01,
p.A1)
2000 Aug 14, The Russian Orthodox
Church announced the canonization of Nicholas II and his immediate
family, executed in 1918.
(SFC, 8/15/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 18, In Chechnya rebels
killed 8 Russian soldiers in several attacks on checkpoints and
roadblocks.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 19, Norwegian divers with
video equipment went down to the sunken Russian submarine Kursk in a
final attempt to find survivors trapped for a week, even though Russian
officials said all 118 seamen aboard were probably dead.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2000 Aug 20, Norwegian divers
examined the Russian submarine Kursk as the British LR5 mini-submarine
prepared for a rescue attempt. 118 Russian sailors were believed dead.
In 2001 it was reported that the Kursk carried nuclear weapons when it
sank, but Russia denied this. The ship was raised Oct 8, 2001. The
severed bow was left for later recovery.
(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 10/8/01, p.B2)
2000 Aug 21, Norwegian divers
opened the hatch to the Russian Kursk submarine but found no sign of
life.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 22, Pres. Putin met with
grieving relatives of the 118 seamen who died in the Kursk nuclear
submarine.
(SFC, 8/23/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 23, Pres. Putin took
responsibility for the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster.
(SFC, 8/24/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 24, Pres. Putin raised
wage 20% for members of the military, police and security forces
effective Dec 1.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 24, Fighting from
Chechnya spilled into Ingushetia and 100 rebels were reported killed by
Russian forces.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 27, In Moscow the
Ostankino television tower caught on fire and burned for close to 26
hours. 2 people were found dead in an elevator that fell some 1000 feet
during the fire. A 3rd body was later found in the elevator shaft.
(SFC, 8/28/00, p.A12)(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A7)(WSJ,
8/30/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 27, In Russia a ferry
collided with a barge at the Votkinsky reservoir and 6 people were
killed with 16 injured.
(SFC, 8/28/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 7, In Chechnya 4 Russian
soldiers were killed during a rebel ambush in Grozny.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, Defense Minister Igor
Sergeyev confirmed that a troop reduction of 350,000 was to be
completed by 2003.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 8, Alleged crime boss
Gocha Tsagarenshvili was gunned down in St. Petersburg.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 20, In Russia gunmen
seized at least 4 hostages in the southern town of Lazarevskoye. They
demanded $30 million and a helicopter. The gunmen surrendered after 2
days and the incident was believed to have been faked and started on a
drunken whim
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.A17)(SFC, 9/23/00, p.A11)
2000 Sep 20, Former Soviet
cosmonaut Gherman Titov died at age 65.
(AP, 9/20/01)
2000 Oct 9, In Chechnya 3 Russian
soldiers were shot to death in Urus-Martan.
(SFC, 10/10/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 17, In Chechnya it was
reported that mines planted by rebels killed 4 Russian soldiers.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2000 Oct 24, In Chechnya 13
Russian soldiers died from rebel mines and attacks and 24 were wounded.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
2000 Oct 25, Russian divers began
to recover bodies from the Kursk submarine. A note was found that
indicated 23 men had survived the initial accident but were unable to
escape.
(SFC, 10/26/00, p.A16)(SFC, 10/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 25, A Russian plane with
at least 75 passengers and crew crashed while trying to land in
Georgia. All were feared dead.
(SFC, 10/26/00, p.D8)
2000 Oct 31, American astronaut
Bill Shepherd and Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev of Russia rocketed
into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket for the Int’l. Space Station for a
4-month stay. They would become the first residents of the
international space station.
(www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/shepherd.html)(SFC,
10/31/00, p.A12)(AP, 10/31/01)
2000 Nov 1, In Chechnya rebels
killed 14 Russian soldiers in a series of raids.
(WSJ, 11/2/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 5, Ludmila Petrova of
Russia won the NYC Marathon among the women in 2:25:45.
(WSJ, 11/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 9, In Russia the
government announced plans to shrink the 3 million member armed forces
by 600,000.
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.D6)
2000 Nov 18, Ivan Shchur (34), a
Russian merchant seaman, was rescued from the barge Meridian, after
being adrift in Arctic ice floes for over 3 weeks.
(SFEC, 11/19/00, p.A14)
2000 Nov 19, In Chechnya 7 Russian
soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in some 2 dozen attacks by Chechen
rebels.
(SFC, 11/20/00, p.A10)
2000 Nov 22, Power cuts in the far
east Primorye region forced hospitals and schools to close. Some 40,000
residents of Vladivostok were had already been without heat for days as
temperatures dropped below freezing.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D7)
2000 Nov 23, In Chechnya 4 Russian
soldiers were killed and 18 wounded in a series of rebel attacks.
(SFC, 11/24/00, p.D8)
2000 Nov 28, A 55-nation European
security meeting failed to make a tough declaration on Chechnya amid
Russian objections.
(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov, David Duke, American
ex-Klansman, arrived to promote his 1st book in Russian "The Jewish
Question Through the Eyes of an American."
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.D3)
2000 Dec 1, Russia as of this date
declared that it would no longer abide by a 1995 deal to halt arms
exports to Iran. The US threatened sanctions.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D8)
2000 Dec 3, In Chechnya rebels
struck numerous check points and at least 13 Russian soldiers
were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 6, A Russian court found
Edmond Pope (54) guilty of espionage.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 8, The Duma voted 381-51
to bring back the old Soviet anthem with new, yet to be written lyrics.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A17)
2000 Dec 8, The pardons commission
recommended to Pres. Putin that clemency be granted to Edmond Pope.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A17)
2000 Dec 9, Pres. Putin said he
would follow the recommendation of the pardons commission and free
Edmond Pope. It was later reported that Pope’s efforts to buy
technology ran parallel to Canadian efforts to buy advanced Shkval
torpedoes from a defense plan in Kyrgyzstan.
(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.A27)(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A10)
2000 Dec 12, Spanish police
arrested Valdimir Gusinsky, a Russian media magnate, on a Russian
warrant for misrepresenting assets for loans.
(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B4)
2000 Dec 13, Russia’s Pres. Putin
traveled to Cuba for business and rest. There was a $20 billion debt
owed by Cuba to the former Soviet Union.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.C8)(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D2)
2000 Dec 13, Russia’s prosecutor’s
office announced the close of a corruption investigation of former
Pres. Yeltsin, his daughters, and a top Kremlin official with no
charges.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.C8)
2000 Dec 14, Vladimir Putin, the
first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet
Union, held talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2000 Dec 14, U.S. businessman
Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted
of espionage.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 16, A Russian poll for
"Man of the Century" put Lenin in 1st place followed by Stalin, Andrei
Sakharov, Yuri Gagarin and Mikhail Gorbachev.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C4)
2000 Dec 16, Twelve ice fishermen
were killed when their minibus plunged through thin ice on the Kamsk
reservoir near Perm.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 16, In Chechnya a series
of rebel attacks killed 16 Russian soldiers. A Chechen family of 4 was
shot to death in Alkhan-Kala by unidentified assailants.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D11)(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)
2000 Dec 17, In Chechnya a rebel
attack killed 3 Russian soldiers. A shootout with rebels in Grozny left
2 police officers and 2 rebels dead.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 17, Cuba and Russia
agreed to abandon the nuclear power plant at Juragua. Pres. Putin
pushed Castro to recognize a small portion of the Soviet-era debt,
estimated at $20 billion.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 18, In Canada Pres. Putin
of Russia met with Prime Minister Chretien and together supported
existing nuclear arms accords. Chretien did not join Putin’s opposition
to a US missile defense plan.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)
2000 Dec 19, It was reported that
60 Russians had died of hypothermia in Moscow since the weather turned
cold on Oct 10.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 19, In Moscow Deputy
Mayor Iosif Ordshonikidze was shot and gravely wounded by masked gunmen
near City Hall. He was overseeing construction of the
multi-billion-dollar "Citi" business district.
(SFC, 12/20/00, p.C5)
2000 Dec 20, In Chechnya 6
students and an instructor from the university in Grozny were killed by
mortar fire from Russian soldiers. One soldier was killed and 4 injured.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.C6)(SFC, 12/26/00, p.C4)
2000 Dec 21, The lower house gave
preliminary backing for plans by the Ministry of Atomic Affairs to take
in spent nuclear fuel from European and Asian countries for hard
currency.
(SFC, 12/22/00, p.A20)
2000 Dec 25, In Russian regional
governor elections Roman Abramovitch (34), head of the Sibneft oil
company, won in Chukotka and Vladimir Shamanov won in Ulyanovsk.
Chukotka is the Russian region across from Alaska.
(WSJ, 12/26/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/13/01, p.A1)
2000 Dec 26, Pres. Putin signed
laws endorsing the tricolor flag in use since 1991, along with the
czarist-era state emblem of a double-headed eagle.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)
2000 Dec 28, Iran and Russia
announced an expanded military and security partnership.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 29, In Chechnya 14
Russian soldiers were killed. Russian troops averaged a loss of 200 men
per month.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A10)
2000 Dec 30, Russia’s Pres. Putin
endorsed the new national anthem with words by poet Sergei Mikhalkov
(1913-2009) and the original Soviet music. Mikhalkov adjusted the text
again, replacing references to Lenin and the Soviets with a paean to
Russia's "divinely protected" forests and meadows that span from
"southern seas to the polar lands."
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)(AP, 8/27/09)
2000 Leon Aron authored the
biography "Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life."
(WSJ, 3/15/00, p.A24)
2000 Paul Klebnikov authored
"Godfather of the Kremlin," a biography of Boris Berezovsky,
businessman and former mathematics professor. It expanded on a 1997
Forbes magazine article, for which Berezovsky sued Forbes.
(WSJ, 9/13/00, p.A24)
2000 Victor Pelevin authored his
absurdist novel "Buddha’s Little Finger."
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.1)
2000 Vladimir Putin, acting
president, authored a book prior to elections.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Boris Yeltsin, former Russian
president, authored "Midnight Diaries."
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.A22)
2000 Gary Kimovich Kasparov (37),
world chess champion (1985-2000), lost to Vladimir Kramnik (25).
(MC, 4/13/02)(SFC, 1/16/04, p.D19)
2000 A professor at Russia's
Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy said that Japan still had gold
that Russia sent primarily to buy weapons during World War I, according
to Interfax. The Bolshevik Revolution toppled the czar before the war
ended and the weapons never arrived. In 2004 Russia planned to open
discussions for the return of up to $80 billion worth of gold.
(AP, 4/22/04)
2000 Oleg Deripaska (32), former
metals trader, emerged as the general director of Russian Aluminum.
(WSJ, 8/28/01, p.A8)
2000 Capital flight in this year
increased 30% over 1999 to $24.6 billion.
(WSJ, 3/28/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was reported that
Russia had moved nuclear warheads into storage areas at its Kaliningrad
naval base over the past year. Russia called the charges a dangerous
joke.
(SFC, 1/4/01, p.A8)(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A20)
2001 Jan 7, In Russia Pres. Putin
pledged to pay all of its Soviet-era int’l. debts.
(SFC, 1/8/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 9, Russia confirmed that
it does not intend to make all of its scheduled payments to the 18
Nation Paris Club.
(SFC, 1/10/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 18, Pavel Borodin (54),
secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, was arrested at JFK airport by
FBI agents on a Swiss warrant for money laundering.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.A15)
2001 Jan 21, In Chechnya rebels
fought street battles in Gudermes following weekend raids that left 6
Russian soldiers dead.
(WSJ, 1/22/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 22, Pres. Putin put his
domestic security agency in charge of the war effort in Chechnya.
(SFC, 1/23/01, p.C3)
2001 Jan 24, In Chechnya 14
Russian soldiers were killed.
(WSJ, 1/25/00, p.A1)
2001 Feb 4, Dr. Kenneth Gluck, a
member of Doctors Without Borders, turned up in good health after being
kidnapped in Chechnya 27 days earlier.
(SFC, 2/5/01, p.A9)
2001 Feb 5, Pres. Putin dismissed
Alexander Gavrin, the energy minister, and ousted Yevgeny Nazdratenko,
governor of the Primorye region due to an energy crises that has left
thousands without heat.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A9)
2001 Feb 5, A bomb went off in a
Moscow subway station and at least 9 people were injured.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 8, The lower house voted
to reduce advertising interruptions for TV movies.
(SSFC, 2/11/01, p.C1)
2001 Feb 14, In Chechnya rebels
opened fire on Russian positions and 12 Russian soldiers were killed.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A16)
2001 Feb 16, Russia test-fired
nuclear-capable missiles from land, sea and air positions.
(SFC, 2/17/01, p.A12)
2001 Feb 18, In Chechnya rebels
blew a Russian troop train of its tracks and 3 people were killed.
(WSJ, 2/21/00, p.A1)
2001 Feb 18, Robert Philip Hanssen
(56), senior FBI agent, was arrested for spying. He had allegedly
passed information to the Russians for 15 years. It was believed that
he had betrayed the construction of a tunnel under the Soviet Embassy
in Washington. He pleaded guilty July 3 to avoid execution. In 2002
David A. Vise authored: "The Bureau and the Mole."
(SFC, 2/21/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 3/4/01, p.A6)(SFC,
7/4/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A16)(AP, 2/18/02)
2001 Feb 21, In Chechnya some 50
bodies began to be uncovered across from a Russian military base at
Zdorovye.
(SFC, 4/14/01, p.A8)
2001 Feb 23, A Moscow court threw
out charges by prosecutors who attempted to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses
under a 1997 law that prohibited religious sects that incite hatred and
violence.
(SFC, 2/24/01, p.A11)
2001 Feb 25, Russian military
officials promised to investigate a recently discovered grave in
Chechnya that contained 11 to several score Chechens with many of the
bodies mined. 48 bodies of men, women and children were found with gun
shot wounds. They had been dumped over the course of a year.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A10)(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A12)
2001 Feb, The Federal Security
Service served notice that it would investigate anonymous accusations
of crimes against Russian citizens, a practice that had been used by
the KGB and ultimately banned.
(SFC, 2/16/01, p.D4)
2001 Feb, Russia’s Atomic Energy
Ministry announced plans to build a 10-megawatt nuclear research
reactor in central Myanmar.
(WSJ, 1/3/02, p.A6)
2001 Mar 7, An avalanche on a
Siberian highway in the Yermakov district buried some 200 people. At
least 2 people died.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.A16)
2001 Mar 11, In Moscow the chief
of the region justice department and his driver were found murdered in
an apartment. 2 suspects were arrested.
(SFC, 3/12/01, p.A15)
2001 Mar 12, Russia and Iran
signed agreements in Moscow to increase their military and economic
cooperation.
(SFC, 3/13/01, p.A16)
2001 Mar 18, Chechen rebels killed
at least 21 Russian troops.
(WSJ, 3/19/00, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, The US State Dept.
ordered the expulsion of 5 suspected Russian spies and informed Moscow
that as many as 50 intelligence officers using diplomatic cover would
have to leave over the next few months.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, Russia’s Mission
Control took command of the Mir space station and prepared it for its
final descent into the South Pacific.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 22, The Duma was expected
to pass a bill to allow the storage of spent nuclear fuel for projected
earnings of some $20 billion.
(WSJ, 3/22/00, p.A1)
2001 Mar 23, Moscow expelled 4 US
diplomats for "activities incompatible with their status." Russia said
it was expelling 50 U.S. diplomats in retaliation for the expulsion of
50 Russians by the U.S.
(SFC, 3/24/01, p.A10)(AP, 3/23/02)
2001 Mar 23, Russia's orbiting
135-ton Mir space station ended its 15-year odyssey with a fiery plunge
into the South Pacific between Chile and New Zealand.
(SFC, 3/23/01, p.A1)(AP, 3/23/02)
2001 Mar 24, In southern Russia
near Chechnya three car bombs exploded almost simultaneously, killing
23 people and wounded over 140 in the worst act of terror to hit Russia
outside warring Chechnya in months. Chechen separatists were blamed.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C1)(AP, 3/24/02)
2001 Mar 28, Pres. Putin replaced
his defense and interior ministers. Sergei Ivanov was appointed the new
defense minister and Boris Gryzlov the new interior minister.
(SFC, 3/29/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 29, Pres. Bush met with
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who disagreed with Bush’s
opposition to the 1997 Kyoto global-warming accord. It was later
revealed that the 2 men agreed to withhold aid for Russia until
corruption ceased.
(SFC, 3/30/01, p.A9)(WSJ, 5/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 31, Some 20,000 people
gathered in Pushkin Square to defend the NTV network from the
government’s 10-month financial and legal campaign against it.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.C2)
2001 Apr 3, Pres. Putin in his
state-of-the-nation address promised a government-wide shakeup to
reverse capital flight and sustain new economic growth.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.A11)(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 3, The NTV leadership was
ousted by Gazprom, a large stake holder. Protesting journalists barred
access to the Ostankino studios.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 7, Thousands of NTV
supporters rallied in Moscow to support journalists who refused to
accept the state-owned Gazprom takeover.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.C4)
2001 Apr 10, Germany’s PM
Schroeder ended 2 days of talks with Pres. Putin of Russia, but no
agreement was reached on Russian debt.
(WSJ, 4/11/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 14, Gazprom security
forces seized the NTV headquarters in Moscow. Scores of correspondents
quit en masse.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.D1)
2001 Apr 16, Gazprom closed down
Sevodnya, the independent daily newspaper of Vladimir Gusinsky, as well
as his weekly magazine.
(SFC, 4/17/01, p.a10)
2001 Apr 17, In Chechnya a
herdsman, Khozh-Akmed Alsultanov (44) was killed with his 3 children in
Nazran, an area surrounded by Russian forces.
(SFC, 4/25/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 24, Three military
officers in Petropavlovsk were arrested on charges of stealing
submarine parts and radioactive isotopes.
(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 26, In Chechnya rebel
fighting killed at least 17 Russian soldiers and wounded 28.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.D4)
2001 Apr 27, In Moscow John Edward
Tobin (24), a US Fullbright scholar, was convicted of possession and
distribution of marijuana. Police had acknowledged making up evidence.
The prosecutor said she was ashamed to handle the case. Tobin was
released August 4.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A15)
2001 Apr 30, The Soyuz-32,
carrying multimillionaire Dennis Tito and 2 Russian astronauts, Talgat
Musabayev and Yuri Baturin, docked with the Int’l. Space Station. The
Soyuz landed in the Kazak steppe on May 6.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.A15)
2001 May 6, It was reported that 1
in every 1000 Russians has tuberculosis.
(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.A15)
2001 May 7, In Chechnya a 2-day
fight around Argun left at least 15 Russian soldiers dead.
(SFC, 5/9/01, p.C5)
2001 May 30, Pres. Putin ousted
the head Gazprom and installed an ally to head the natural gas monopoly.
(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 4, Most of the production
of vodka stopped due to the lack of government stamps, which were
ordered to fight bootlegging and boost taxes.
(WSJ, 6/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 6, Lawmakers approved a
plan for storing nuclear waste in Siberia to earn an estimated $20
billion over 10 years.
(SFC, 6/7/01, p.C2)
2001 Jun 15, Russia’s state Duma
passed land reform legislation (251-22) that permitted the sale and
purchase of private property, but not farmland.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A6)
2001 Jun 15, The Shanghai Five
member nations, having admitted Uzbekistan, signed the Declaration of
Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)
2001 Jun 16, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Putin of Russia in Slovenia. Putin warned Bush against NATO
expansion and "unilateral action" on missile defense, but they promoted
their new friendship and planned economic cooperation.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 18, Russian authorities
reported that 19 servicemen were detained on suspicion of killing
civilians in Chechnya. 7-8 civilians were recently killed near
Pobedenskoye.
(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A9)
2001 Jun 25, In Chechnya Russia
claimed to have killed Arbi Barayev, a top Chechen rebel commander, in
a week-long offensive near Grozny. At least 17 rebels were killed.
Movladi Udagov, a Chechen leader, said 150 federal soldiers were killed
along with 60 civilians from a massive Russian bombardment.
(WSJ, 6/25/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/26/01, p.A9)
2001 Jun 26, In Chechnya
Russian troops claimed to have killed at least 30 rebels near the
Georgian border.
(WS, 6/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 2, In Irkutsk authorities
declared a state of emergency following a huge invasion of locusts.
(SFC, 7/7/01, p.A4)
2001 Jul 3, In Russia Flight
TD-352, a Tu-154 operated by Vladivostok Avia, crashed in Siberia near
the village of Burdakovka. All 143 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 7/4/01,
p.A10)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1421072.stm)
2001 Jul 3-2001 Jul 4, A Russian
roundup operation sent an estimated 26,000 Chechen refugees fleeing to
Ingushetia. Lt. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, acting commander of Russian
forces, later acknowledged that his troops committed widespread crimes
during the operation.
(SFC, 7/10/01, p.A8)(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 5, Top journalists at
Echo Moskvy resigned to protest a takeover by the Gazprom state
monopoly.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.D4)
2001 Jul 6, Pres. Putin called for
multilateral talks to eliminate 10,000 warheads over the next 7 years.
(SFC, 7/7/01, p.A8)
2001 Jul 11, Pres. Putin signed
into law a plan to import spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing. The
imports would be subject to approval by a commission chaired by Nobel
Prize-winning physicist Zhores Alferov.
(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A14)
2001 Jul 12, Pres. Putin signed
into law a bill that limited private donations to $100 per year and
required political parties to have at least 10,000 members.
(SFC, 7/13/01, p.A16)
2001 Jul 15, China’s Pres. Zemin
arrived in Russia for a state visit. A treaty of friendship and
cooperation was planned.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)
2001 Jul 17, In Moscow Russia and
China agreed to plan a $1.7 billion pipeline for oil from Siberia to
northeastern China.
(SFC, 7/18/01, p.C4)
2001 Jul 20, It was reported that
China planned to buy 38 Russian Su-30 MKK ground attack jets worth $2
billion.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.D4)
2001 Jul 31, Russian commandos
freed 25 [41] hostages held by 2 hijackers in Mineralniye Vody,
Chechnya.
(SFC, 8/1/01, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 1, In Chechnya 86
refugees attempted a 1000-mile march to Moscow to protest atrocities
but were immediately stopped by force and 12 were arrested.
(SFC, 8/2/01, p.A12)
2001 Aug 3, Russia freed John E.
Tobin Jr. (24), a US Fulbright scholar. Tobin had spent 6 months in
jail on a marijuana conviction that he claimed was set up.
(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A6)
2001 Aug 3, Kim Jong Il arrived in
Moscow following 9-day train ride from North Korea.
(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 4, In Moscow Kim Jong Il
and Pres. Putin signed a joint statement declaring that North Korea’s
missile program is not designed to threaten any nation.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A12)(AP, 8/4/02)
2001 Aug 13, In southeast Chechnya
rebels seized the village of Benoi-Yurt. Pro-Moscow administrators were
reported killed.
(SFC, 8/14/01, p.A7)
2001 Aug 18, It was reported that
Chelyabinsk Gov. Pyotr Sumin had written Russia’s Pres. Putin a letter
of concern over the radioactive waste from the Mayak nuclear processing
plant. Some 14 billion cubic feet of waste in artificial lakes
threatened to leak into the region’s rivers.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.E1)
2001 Aug 21, It was reported that
the US had given Russia an unofficial deadline of November to agree to
changes in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or face a unilateral US
withdrawal.
(SFC, 8/22/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 21, It was reported that
the US had given Russia an unofficial deadline of November to agree to
changes in the anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or face a unilateral US
withdrawal. The State Dept. denied the ultimatum the next day.
(SFC, 8/22/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 22, In Chechnya Russian
troops claimed to have wounded rebel commander Shamil Basayev and
killed 35 of his fighters.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 1, Pres. Putin promised
to double salaries for teachers as children began school on "Knowledge
Day." Current pay was about $35 per month.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, p.A16)
2001 Sep 16, A Russian module
docked with space station Alpha 2 days after its launch from Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 9/17/01, p.A18)
2001 Sep 17, In Chechnya rebels
shot down a Russian Mi-8 helicopter. 2 generals and 8 colonels were
killed. An attack at Gudermes left 10 Russian soldiers dead. 15 rebels
were reported killed.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.B10)
2001 Sep 20, The State Duma
approved private ownership of urban and industrial land, about 2% of
the country.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D3)
2001 Sep 24, The US received from
Russia an essential go-ahead to use 3 former republics as bases for
attacks on Afghanistan.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A1,6)
2001 Sep 24, Russia pledged
support for US efforts and arms for anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 9/25/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/26/01, p.A16)
2001 Sep 25, Pres. Putin issued a
72-hour ultimatum to Chechen rebels to show up for peace talks.
(WSJ, 9/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 26, Russian military
officers met with colleagues from 9 former Soviet republics to discuss
joint action against terrorists.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A8)
2001 Oct 1, Russia claimed to have
killed Abu Yakub, a top aide to an Arab commander allied with rebels in
Chechnya.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 2, In Moscow Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov signed a weapons framework agreement with
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani for as much as $300 million.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A11)
2001 Oct 3, Pres. Putin said
Russia is ready to reconsider its opposition to NATO expansion if the
alliance assumes a broader political identity in which Moscow can be
involved.
(SFC, 10/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Oct 3, In Chechnya rebels
killed 9 federal troops in a number of clashes that included 4 dead
from land mines. 4 militants were also killed.
(SFC, 10/4/01, p.C8)
2001 Oct 4, A chartered Russian
Tupelov-154 airplane crashed in to the Black Sea and all 78 people
aboard were killed. The Sibir Airlines jet was bound to Novosibirsk
from Tel Aviv. An accidental missile strike from Ukrainian military
forces was suspected but denied by Ukraine officials. Pres. Putin said
terrorists might have been responsible. Later evidence indicated that
flight 1812 was hit by an S-200 missile. On Oct 12 Ukraine and Russia
acknowledged that an errant missile was the probable cause. In 2003
Ukraine agreed to pay $200,000 for each Israeli killed.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A11)(WSJ, 11/21/03,
p.A1)(www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/100501crash.shtml)
201 Oct 8, Most of the Kursk
submarine was raised from the Barents Sea in a $65 million salvage
operation by the Dutch Mammoet-Smit Int’l. consortium.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.D3)
2001 Oct 15, Russian troops
claimed to have killed 20 Chechen rebels with a loss of 5 of their own
men.
(WSJ, 10/16/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 21, In Kazakhstan a
3-person Russian-French crew blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station
in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew included Claudie Haignere, who
in 1996 became the 1st Frenchwoman in space.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B2)
2001 Oct 24, Chechen leader Akhmed
Zakayev called Putin envoy Viktor Kazantsev to meet in Moscow for talks.
(SFC, 10/25/01, p.C2)
2001 Oct 30, Some 300 young people
stormed a Moscow market in a racist rampage that left 2 Caucasus
vendors dead.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Nov 3, Sec. of Defense Donald
H. Rumsfeld met with Pres. Putin in Moscow for talks that included
Russian intelligence support. The visit was part of a 4-day tour with
stops in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India.
(SSFC, 11/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Nov 5, A military helicopter
hit a radio tower near St. Petersburg and at least 5 crew members were
killed.
(WSJ, 11/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 6, Russia clinched a deal
to build a $2.6 billion nuclear-power plant in Kudunkulam, Tamil Nadu,
India. India reiterated its intention of buying a Russian aircraft
carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov, for the cost of retrofit estimated at
$500 million, along with 2 squadrons of MiG-29C jet fighters.
(WSJ, 11/7/01, p.A16)
2001 Nov 14, In Stavropol 5 men
convicted of plotting bomb attacks, were sentenced 9-15 years in
prison. All 5 were said to have attended terrorist camps in Chechnya
run by an associate of Osama bin Laden.
(WSJ, 11/15/01, p.A22)
2001 Nov 18, Russia dropped all
conditions and opened talks with Chechnya.
(SFC, 11/19/01, p.A15)
2001 Nov 19, A Russian airliner
crashed 90 miles north of Moscow and all 24 on board were killed. The
Ilyushin-18 was chartered by Israero and was from the Siberian city of
Khatanga.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 22, Talks on Russia-NATO
relations began in Moscow. A plan was proposed that would give Russia
equal status with the 19 permanent members.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 7, Russia and NATO
proclaimed a commitment "to forge a new relationship" following a
meeting in Brussels.
(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A5)
2001 Dec 13, Pres. Bush gave
Russia a formal 6-month advance notice of his decision to withdraw from
the 1972 ABM treaty in order to advance his missile-shield plans. China
and Russia offered muted criticism.
(WSJ, 12/13/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 25, Salman Raduyev, a
Chechen warlord, was sentenced by a Russian court to life in prison for
terrorism and murder.
(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A4)
2001 Dec 25, Grigory Pasko (39),
Russian military journalist, was sentenced to 4 years in prison plus
credit for time served for passing state secrets to Japan. He had
reported on the Russian navy practice of ocean-dumping old weapons and
nuclear waste. In 2002 the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 military
secrecy order used to convict Pasko. In 2002 a military court upheld
the verdict.
(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A5)(SFC, 2/13/02, p.A16)(SFC,
6/26/02, p.A10)
2001 Dec 30, Russian troops
mounted an offensive south of Grozny after 6 Russian soldiers were
killed by rebels. The offensive left 73 rebels dead. Civilians were
later reported to have been counted as rebels.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A1)(SFC,
1/7/02, p.A5)
2001 Anna Politkovskaya authored
"A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya."
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M6)
2001 In Russia Tatyana Tolstaya
authored her experimental novel "Kys."
(WSJ, 2/25/02, p.A1)
2001 Reality TV arrived in Russia
in the shape of “Behind the Glass,” created by Grigory Lubomirov.
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.72)
2001 Russia slashed taxes by a
third and simplified its tax code.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.19)
2001 Russia sold Myanmar 10 MiG-29
fighter aircraft for $130 million.
(WSJ, 1/3/02, p.A6)
2001 Alexander Gorlov, a Russian
civil engineer who worked on the Aswan High Dam, won the Edison patent
for his invention of a turbine that could extract power from
free-flowing currents.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.12)
2002 Jan 3, Russian forces fought
Chechen rebels for a 6th day in a conflict that left 40 dead. In other
action 5 Russian soldiers were killed in attacks across Chechnya.
Fighting continued in Tsotsin-Yurt. Moscow claimed 100 rebels killed,
but rebels disputed that and said 40 Russians were killed. Civilians
were later reported to have been counted as rebels.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A17)(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/7/02,
p.A5)
2002 Jan 4, Russia announced that
it would reduce its military by over 15%.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 10, In Chechnya Russian
troops lifted a weeklong blockade of Argun.
(WSJ, 1/11/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 11, In Moscow an appeals
court ordered the liquidation of TV-6, the country’s last major
independent TV channel.
(SFC, 1/12/02, p.A2)
2002 Jan 18, It was reported that
the biography: "Vladimir Putin: a Life Story" by Oleg Blotsky was being
released in Moscow.
(SFC, 1/18/02, p.A7)
2002 Jan 21, In Russia the media
minister took TV6 off the air after journalists there failed to cut
ties with owner Boris Berezovsky. Russian troops rounded up dozens in
Dagestan following an earlier bomb attack that killed 7 soldiers.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 22, Pres. Putin said that
Russian fitness and sports infrastructure had so declined in the last
decade that only 1 in 10 citizens exercise of play sports.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.A13)
2002 Jan 27, A Russian military
helicopter crashed in Chechnya and all 14 aboard were killed including
generals.
(SFC, 1/28/02, p.A7)(WSJ, 1/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan, Russia’s Accounting
Chamber charged that $270 million in US and European aid, intended to
clean up and build storage facilities for radioactive waste, had
disappeared.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, p.A17)
2002 Feb 22, An AN-26 military
cargo plane crashed in Lakhta and 17 people were killed.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A12)
2002 Feb 25, NATO offered Russia a
modified membership, with no veto power over political or military
policies.
(SFC, 2/26/02, p.A7)
2002 Mar 8, Natalya Skryl,
business reporter, was struck from behind in Taganrog, southwestern
Russia, and died the next day. She had been investigating the struggle
for a metallurgical plant.
(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 24, It was reported that
Russia had launched a new nuclear-powered submarine called Gepard
(Cheetah).
(SSFC, 3/24/02, Par p.22)
2002 Mar 29, It was reported that
Russia had announced plans to build a nuclear plant for North Korea.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 1, The body of journalist
Sergei Kalinovsky was found outside Smolensk. He was known for his
exposes on government corruption and had gone missing in December, 2001.
(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 3, The US-financed Radio
Free Europe / Radio Liberty began broadcasting in the North Caucasus
region that included Chechnya. The Kremlin viewed the broadcasts as
interference with internal affairs.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A6)
2002 cApr 5, The Kremlin reported
that 3,220 Russian soldiers had been killed in Chechnya since 1999 and
nearly 9,000 injured.
(SFC, 4/10/02, p.A11)
2002 Apr 10, The FSB, successor to
the KGB, accused the CIA of trying to steal military secrets. US
diplomat Yunju Kensinger and David Patterson were identified as agents
posing as US Embassy officials.
(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 12, Russia sent troops
into the Kodori gorge of Georgia to watch the Abkhazia border. The move
was condemned by Georgian officials and troops were soon withdrawn.
(SFC, 4/13/02, p.A11)(WSJ, 4/15/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 18, In Chechnya rebel
explosives killed 21 police officers in Grozny.
(SFC, 4/19/02, p.A19)
2002 Apr 25, Russia reported that
Khattab, an Arab guerrilla, had been killed in Chechnya on Mar 19-20.
(SFC, 4/26/02, p.A14)(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 25, A Russian rocket
blasted into orbit with Mark Shuttleworth (28) of South Africa, who
paid $20 million for the trip to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 4/26/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 28, General Murat
Zyazikov was elected president of Ingushetia.
(www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/krono.exe?5105)
2002 Apr 28, Alexander I. Lebed
(52), governor of Krasnoyarsk, was killed in a helicopter crash with 6
others at Abakan, 200 miles from Mongolia. Gen. Lebed was instrumental
in helping Yeltsin retain power in 1991.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.B8)
2002 Apr 28, A bomb killed 7
people in a Russian provincial town near Chechnya.
(WSJ, 4/29/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, Russia’s military
command said the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev had been killed.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2002 May 9, A terrorist bomb
killed at least 41 people including 13 children in Kaspiisk, Dagestan.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/10/02, p.A1)(SFC,
5/11/02, p.A12)
2002 May 12, In Kazakhstan a roof
collapsed at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Russia’s main space launch site.
8 workers were feared killed.
(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May 13, President Bush
announced that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would sign a
treaty to shrink their countries' nuclear arsenals by two-thirds to
1,700-2,200 active warheads at the end of 10 years.
(SFC, 5/14/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/13/03)
2002 May 14, NATO agreed with
Russia on an new framework that would include Russia on a handful of
agreed-on issues.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A1)
2002 May 24, Presidents Bush and
Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow, an agreement to reduce nuclear
stockpiles by two-thirds over the next 10 years.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A1)
2002 May 25, President Bush,
during a visit to St. Petersburg, joined Russian President Vladimir
Putin in pressuring Pakistan's president to curb cross-border violence
in Kashmir and ease tensions with neighboring India.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.A12)(AP, 5/25/03)
2002 May 28, Russia signed an
agreement with NATO leaders in Rome for participation in NATO
discussions on a fixed variety of subjects, but no veto power.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/29/02, p.A1)
2002 May 29, Oxana Fedorova of
Russia was crowned as the 51st Miss Universe.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A2)(AP, 5/29/07)
2002 May 29, The EU upgraded
Russia to the status of a full market economy.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A8)
2002 May, Kazakhstan and Russia
signed an accord over the northern half of the Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 6, The US recognized
Russia as a market economy.
(SFC, 6/7/02, p.A12)
2002 Jun 8, It was reported that
Pres. Putin’s allies in the Duma kicked out the Communists of their
governing coalition.
(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A14)
2002 Jun 9, Azerbaijan and Russia
signed a bilateral accord on the oil-rich Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 9, Thousands of Russian
soccer fans rioted in Moscow during their country's loss to Japan in
the World Cup.
(AP, 6/9/03)
2002 Jun 14, Russia formally
withdrew from the START II nuclear arms treaty with the United States,
calling the accord meaningless given current U.S. defense policies.
(AP, 6/14/02)
2002 Jun 16, In Russia two army
deserters shot and killed two police officers who stopped their stolen
car at a traffic checkpoint in southern Russia.
(AP, 6/16/02)
2002 Jun 17, Russian police
fatally shot two army deserters, ending a daylong manhunt that began
after the soldiers left their unit and killed two policemen at a
roadblock in southern Russia.
(AP, 6/17/02)
2002 Jun 22, Officials in southern
Russia reported that flooding has claimed at least 28 lives and forced
thousands to leave their homes. The toll rose to 93 and President
Vladimir Putin took local authorities to task for not doing more to
help victims..
(AP, 6/22/02)(SFC, 6/25/02, p.A8)(AP, 6/28/02)
2002 Jun 26, A Moscow court
sentenced in absentia former KGB Gen. Oleg Kalugin to 15 years in
prison for revealing secrets about U.S.-based agents in a 1994 book
about his Cold War career.
(AP, 6/26/02)(SFC, 6/27/02, p.A14)
2002 Jun 26, The 2-day G-8 Summit
opened at Kananaskis, Alberta. The leaders of the world's richest
countries begin a two-day summit on a peace plan for the Middle East,
the fight against terrorism and aid for Africa. They announced that
Russia would be made a full-fledged member of the elite group.
(Reuters, 6/26/02)(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.C2)(AP, 6/26/03)
2002 Jun, Pres. Putin said
Chechens must take over control of their homeland from the 80,000
federal troops. The local police force numbered about 8,500.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun, The UN AIDS program
reported that Russia had the highest epidemic of HIV infections in the
world.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 1, Bashkirian flight 2937
with 45 Russian children headed for a beach vacation in Spain were
among 71 people killed when their chartered Tupolev airliner slammed
into a Boeing 757 DHL cargo plane over southern Germany. The flights
were under Swiss air control. An onboard device told the pilot to climb
but he followed a controller’s order to dive instead. In 2007 four
employees of a Swiss air traffic control company were convicted of
negligent homicide for the crash of flight 2937.
(AP, 7/2/02)(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/2/02,
p.A1)(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A6)(WSJ, 7/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 9/4/07)
2002 Jul 3, Swiss authorities said
a collision-warning system was out of service in the Zurich tower when
it took control of a Russian airliner and a cargo jet shortly before
they collided on July 1 at 35,000 feet, killing 71 people, including 45
children headed for an end-of-school beach holiday. One of 2 required
air controllers was on a break.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A8)
2002 Jul 5, In Chechnya rebel
ambushes killed 11 Russian soldiers and police officers.
(SFC, 7/6/02, p.A7)
2002 Jul 10, In the Russian Baltic
enclave of Kaliningrad a man was killed when a sign with an offensive
slogan exploded as he tried to remove it from a park.
(AP, 7/10/02)
2002 Jul 16, In Chechnya
separatist fighters attacked Russian army convoys and checkpoints and 6
people were killed.
(WSJ, 7/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 19, Alexander I. Ginzburg
(65), Russian-born poet, died in Paris. In 1959 he created the 1st
samizdat (self-published journal) of the post-Stalin period. He was
flown to the US in 1979 as part of an exchange for Soviet spies.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A27)
2002 Jul 21, In Russia fighting
started when a vendor at the Moscow Orion market opened fire at a group
of wholesale buyers who allegedly refused to pay him for his goods. The
armed vendor was from the Dagestan region in southern Russia, and the
buyers were from the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
(AP, 7/22/02)
2002 Jul 24, In Russia PM Mikhail
Kasyanov ordered all businesses to adopt international accounting
standards by 2004.
(WSJ, 7/25/02, p.A9)
2002 Jul 25, In Russia Pres. Putin
signed into law a bill that allowed the sale of farmland, but not to
foreigners.
(SFC, 7/26/02, p.A17)
2002 Jul 28, A Russian Il-86
cargo plane crashed into a forest shortly after taking off from
Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 airport, killing 14 people. There were two
survivors, officials said.
(AP, 7/28/02)
2002 Jul 31, US court papers
alleged that Russia's Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (53) used his influence
with members of the Russian and French skating federations to fix the
outcome of the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the Salt Lake City
Winter Olympics last February. Tokhtakhounov was arrested in Italy.
Italy’s highest court denounced an extradition bid and freed
Tokhtakhounov.
(Reuters, 7/31/02)(SFC, 8/1/02,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alimzhan_Tokhtakhounov)
2002 Jul, Pres. Putin summoned
hundreds of Russian diplomats to Moscow urging them to prioritize
economics and to seek partners that "give Russia real payback."
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul, Minatom, Russia’s atomic
energy agency, announced a 10-year, $10-billion plan to build 5 more
reactors in Iran.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, p.A1,17)
2002 Aug 9, Rescue workers found
the bodies of 19 people killed swept away by rushing water near
Russia's Black Sea coast after some of Europe's worst flooding in
decades turned rivers and streets into torrents. At least 27 people
died, 21 of them in Russia.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 16, Russia and Iraqi
officials planned to sign a 5-year $40 billion economic cooperation
agreement.
(SFC, 8/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 17, Russia troops battled
with Chechen rebels who attacked a number of villages in southern
Chechnya in fighting that has left nine soldiers and five civilians
dead.
(AP, 8/17/02)
2002 Aug 18, In central Russia a
bus drove into a ditch in the republic of Chuvashia and overturned,
killing 22 people and injuring 38.
(AP, 8/18/02)
2002 Aug 19, A Russian Mi-26
military helicopter loaded with troops crashed in Chechnya. 127 were
killed and 32 injured when the troop transport fell into a minefield in
what Russian media called the nation's biggest military helicopter
crash and the biggest single-day casualty count in the Chechen war.
Chechen rebels claimed to have shot the helicopter down.
(AP, 8/20/02)(WSJ, 8/23/02, p.A1)(AP, 8/21/03)(AP,
8/19/07)
2002 Aug 20, In Russia an
explosion tore through a residential building in Moscow, blowing open a
50-foot-wide section and collapsing five stories of apartments. At
least 7 people were killed, and as many as 5 others were feared trapped
in the rubble. A natural gas leak was suspected.
(AP, 8/21/02)
2002 Aug 21, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il toured the shop floor of a Russian defense plant, getting a
firsthand glimpse of how Russia's Sukhoi fighter jets are manufactured.
(AP, 8/21/02)
2002 Aug 22, The US and Russia
took away 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from an aging nuclear
reactor in Belgrade to Russia for re-processing.
(SFC, 8/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 23, Russian troops
battled rebels for the fourth straight day outside a Chechen village,
while eight soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours.
(AP, 8/23/02)
2002 Aug 23, Pres. Shevardnadze
accused Russia of bombing inside Georgia’s border. One person was
reported killed.
(SFC, 8/24/02, p.A7)
2002 Aug 23, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il capped his second visit to Russia in a year with a long
meeting with President Vladimir Putin and a taste of the consumer
delights that are in short supply in his country. Putin pressed North
Korea on Friday to forge a new Asia-Europe freight route by extending
Russia's trans-Siberian railway across the Korean peninsula to bypass
China.
(AP, 8/23/02)(Reuters, 8/23/02)
2002 Aug 27, Two Russian border
guards were arrested and confessed to killing eight of their comrades
in Ingushetia to avenge hazing. President Vladimir Putin called for
better discipline and combat-readiness amid a string of deadly
incidents.
(AP, 8/28/02)
2002 Aug 29, In Russia a small
plane disappeared in the Far East region of Khabarovsk. The plane
crashed into a cliff and 16 people were killed.
(AP, 8/29/02)(AP, 9/2/02)
2002 Aug 31, A Russian helicopter
was downed by a missile in Chechnya, killing two.
(AP, 8/31/02)
2002 Sep 1, Some 600 Russian
specialists began work on a key phase of an $800 million project to
build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, Iran.
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A9)
2002 Sep 2, Russia urged Iraq to
admit UN weapons inspectors to avoid a war that could jeopardize
multibillion-dollar economic deals between the trading partners.
(AP, 9/2/02)
2002 Sep 3, Russia and China gave
their backing to the Kyoto Protocolon cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.
(AP, 9/3/02)(WSJ, 9/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 8, A Russian prosecutor
said that the bodies of seven Chechen residents who disappeared several
months ago were found in a common grave near Goragorsk.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 11, In Russia Pres. Putin
threatened military strikes on Georgia to defend itself from terrorist
attacks.
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A7)
2002 Sep 20, In southern Russia a
collapsing glacier triggered an avalanche of ice and mud, burying the
village of Nizhny Karmadon in the southern republic of North Ossetia,
and killing as many as 100 people.
(AP, 9/21/02)
2002 Sep 23, Georgia's president
sought to defuse an explosive war of words with Russia, offering to let
Moscow send unarmed military observers to the mountain valley where
Russia says terrorists are operating.
(AP, 9/23/02)
2002 Sep 26, A Russian military
helicopter was shot down in the Russian republic of Ingushetia near the
border with Chechnya, killing two crewmen. At least 14 Russian
servicemen were killed in fierce fighting with rebels.
(AP, 9/26/02)(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A10)
2002 Sep 27, Russian troops used
artillery overnight to block suspected rebels from crossing into
Chechnya through a forested part of the republic of Ingushetia after
firefights that left at least 17 Russian servicemen dead.
(AP, 9/27/02)
2002 Sep 30, The National
Intelligence Council said China, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Russia
will have 50-75 million HIV-infected people by 2010, more than any
other 5 countries.
(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A5)
2002 Sep, The film "Oligarch"
premiered at Cannes. It chronicled the initial years of Russian
capitalism and was based on a best selling novel by an early partner of
Boris A. Berezovsky.
(SSFC, 9/29/02, p.F4)
2002 Oct 9, Russian census takers
officially began counting its population in the first tally of the
nation's inhabitants in 13 years. The Muslims were found to number 14.5
million, 10% of the 145 million total.
(AP, 10/9/02)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.47)
2002 Oct 13, In Russia 10 people
died of hypothermia in Moscow over the weekend, bringing the death toll
for the current cold season to 32.
(AP, 10/14/02)
2002 Oct 15, In northern Russia a
Soyuz-U rocket carrying a EU research communications satellite exploded
several seconds after liftoff from a launch pad, killing one soldier.
(AP, 10/16/02)(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 18, Valentin Tsvetkov
(54), the governor of Russia's Far Eastern region of Magadan, was
assassinated on a busy central Moscow street in what police said was a
contract killing.
(AP, 10/18/02)
2002 Oct 19, In Russia a car bomb
exploded at a packed McDonald's restaurant in Moscow, injuring at least
seven people. A boy (17) died later from injuries.
(AP, 10/19/02)(SFC, 10/21/02, p.A5)
2002 Oct 20, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov,
incumbent president of the Russian region of Kalmykia since 1993, led
all vote-getters in a re-election bid. Ilyumzhinov, a millionaire and
president of the international chess federation FIDE, led the field of
11 candidates with 47.6 percent of the vote.
(AP, 10/21/02)
2002 Oct 23, In Moscow 40-50
Chechen separatist guerrillas seized a theater and threatened to shoot
or blow up 700 hostages unless Russia pulled its troops out of their
homeland. The next day they killed one woman.
(AP, 10/24/02)(SFC, 10/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 23, Pres. Bush signed the
Russian Democracy Act of 2002, intended to strengthen civil society and
independent media in Russia. It authorized more than $50 million for
democracy-building programs such as investigative journalism training
and cultural exchanges.
(AP, 11/4/02)
2002 Oct 25, Russia pledged not to
kill Chechen guerrillas holding some 600 hostages in a Moscow theater
if they freed all their captives. Chechens released eight children and
then set a dawn Saturday deadline to begin killing the rest of their
captives if Russia does not agree to pull its army out of Chechnya.
(AP, 10/25/02)
2002 Oct 26, Russian special
forces, using gas to knock out Chechen guerrillas, stormed a Moscow
theater in a dawn raid that left dozens of hostages dead along with
most of their rebel captors. Russian special forces killed 41 rebels,
including leader Movsar Barayev, and freed more about 600 captives in
the third day of a hostage drama. 129 captives were killed. All the
dead hostages except for 1 were killed by the gas later suspected to be
the anesthetic carfentanyl possibly mixed with halothane.
(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/28/02, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/31/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/9/02, p.A7)(AP, 10/26/03)
2002 Oct 28, Russian President
Vladimir Putin led a national day of mourning as relatives and friends
grieved for the more than 100 captives who died in the siege at a
Moscow theater.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2002 Oct 28, Chechen President
Aslan Maskhadov is prepared to hold unconditional talks with the
Russian leadership to find a political solution to the bloody conflict
in Chechnya, his envoy said.
(Reuters, 10/28/02)
2002 Oct 29, A Russian helicopter
was shot down in Chechnya by a missile, killing all three crew and one
passenger aboard.
(AP, 10/29/02)
2002 Oct 30, Danish police
arrested Akhmed Zakayev (43), a top aide to Aslan Maskhadov, former
Chechen president.
(SFC, 10/31/02, p.A31)
2002 Oct 30, Russia launched a
rocket carrying two cosmonauts and a Belgian astronaut to the
international space station for an eight-day mission.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2002 Oct 31, Chechen rebels killed
six Russian servicemen, a Chechen policeman and a local administrator,
as Russian forces intensified searches for rebels in the wake of the
Moscow theater siege.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Nov 1, Russian lawmakers
passed amendments that would sharply curb news coverage of
anti-terrorist operations and prohibit the media from carrying rebel
statements, a legislative step officials called increasingly urgent in
light of last week's hostage crisis.
(AP, 11/1/02)
2002 Nov 3, Chechen rebels shot
down a Russian military helicopter, killing nine servicemen, after
Moscow said its forces had launched new military action to crush
attempts by the guerrillas to stage "new acts of terror."
(Reuters, 11/3/02)
2002 Nov 11, Russian troops
ambushed Chechen rebels near Grozhny and 6 guerrillas were reported
killed. [see Apr 29, 2004]
(WSJ, 11/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 16, A high-ranking
Russian officer was killed and a top Chechen official abducted at
gunpoint in new fighting in the southern Russian republic.
(AP, 11/16/02)
2002 Nov 22, At the NATO summit in
Prague, Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush the United
States should not wage war alone against Iraq, and questioned whether
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were doing enough to fight terrorism.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2002 Nov 26, The Astra-1K
satellite was launched atop a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur
cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. The world's
largest communications satellite, manufactured by France's Alcatel
Space corporation for Societe Europeene des Satellites of Luxembourg,
was lost after it went into the wrong orbit.
(AP, 11/26/02)(WSJ, 11/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 27, Russian officials
renewed their drive to close sprawling tent camps in the republic of
Ingushetia that are home to tens of thousands of Chechen refugees.
(AP, 11/27/02)
2002 Nov 29, Denis Solovyov, a
Russian soldier, on patrol along the Georgia border, opened fire on
fellow servicemen killing at least eight of them and wounding three
others. Solovyov was apparently under the influence of narcotics.
(AP, 11/29/02)
2002 Nov 29, It was reported that
TransOrbital Inc. had signed a $20 million contract with Kosmotras,
Moscow’s int’l. space company, to use decommissioned ballistic missiles
for commercial launches to the moon.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.K3)
2002 Nov 29, Five Russian
servicemen and a paramilitary policeman serving in Chechnya were killed
in clashes with rebels and from mine explosions.
(AP, 11/30/02)
2002 Dec 2, In Beijing Russia’s
Pres. Putin and Jiang Zemin signed a 13-page declaration calling for a
"multi-polar" world and peaceful solutions in Iraq and North Korea.
(SFC, 12/3/02, p.A8)
2002 Dec 2, In Russia a car hit a
land mine and exploded near a settlement housing Russian military
personnel outside Moscow, killing a businessman and his two employees.
(AP, 12/2/02)
2002 Dec 14, Salman Raduyev
(b.1967), the Chechen warlord who led a bloody 1996 raid on a Russian
hospital that killed 78 people, died in a Russian hard labor camp while
serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/15/02)
2002 Dec 17, The Interfax news
agency reported that Russia has lost 4,705 soldiers, officers and
policemen in Chechnya since 1999.
(AP, 12/18/02)
2002 Dec 23, More air traffic
controllers joined a hunger strike in Siberia and other parts of the
country as Russia's labor minister rejected their demand for a 30
percent pay increase.
(AP, 12/23/02)
2002 Dec 23, In central Iran a
Ukrainian An-140 aircraft, carrying Ukrainian and Russian aerospace
scientists from Turkey, flew into a mountainside while preparing to
land killing all 46 people on board. Airport officials said pilot
"carelessness" caused the plane to crash.
(AP, 12/24/02)
2002 Dec 25, Russian air traffic
controllers reached an agreement on wage increases paving the way for
an end to a hunger strike that disrupted air travel.
(AP, 12/25/02)
2002 Dec 25, In Chechnya 28
guerrillas laid down their weapons in Grozny. A pro-Russian party
leader and at least 4 Russians were killed in the last 24 hrs.
(SFC, 12/25/02, p.A17)
2002 Dec 27, Chechen rebel suicide
bombers rammed vehicles packed with a ton of explosives into the local
government headquarters in Grozny, gutting the building and killing at
least 83 people.
(Reuters, 12/27/02)(AP, 12/28/02)(SFC, 12/31/02,
p.A7)
2002 Dec 27, Russia said it will
no longer accept US Peace Corps volunteers, after suggesting the
workers were spying.
(AP, 12/27/02)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A11)
2002 Dec 30, In Chechnya rebels
staged attacks on pro-Moscow forces and killed 4 people in Grozny.
(SFC, 12/31/02, p.A7)
2002 Orlando Figes authored
"Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia."
(SSFC, 11/3/02, p.M6)
2002 Nov, Sergei and Olga Gorin
disappeared. They had allegedly threatened to inform authorities of a
plot to kill Olga Kostina, spokeswoman of the Moscow city government
and onetime adviser to Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In 2005
Alexei Pichugin, former head of the Yukos internal security dept., was
convicted of setting up the murder.
(WSJ, 3/25/05,
p.A7)(www.pichugintrial.com/history.cfm)
2003 Jan 9, Six Russian soldiers
and police officers were killed in Chechnya in the last 24 hours.
Another 9 Russian soldiers died when their convoy came under rebel fire
in Grozny. Two rebels were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 1/10/03)(AP, 1/11/03)
2003 Jan 11, In Chechnya 4 Russian
servicemen were killed in clashes, while 4 soldiers died when their
vehicles struck land mines.
(AP, 1/12/03)
2003 Jan 17, Russian prosecutors
presented a criminal dossier on feared Soviet secret police chief
Lavrenty Beria, including a list of hundreds of women he had allegedly
stalked and raped.
(AP, 1/17/03)
2003 Jan 17, Iraq and Russia
signed three oil agreements for exploration and development of oil
fields in southern and western Iraq.
(AP, 1/17/03)
2003 Jan 20, The leaders of Russia
and Belarus reaffirmed their commitment to closer integration under a
union treaty that has developed slowly since it was created nearly
seven years ago.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Jan 29, Russia's Border Guard
Service said the US led anti-terror operation in Afghanistan has done
nothing to reduce the flow of illegal drugs from that country.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 31, A Russian cargo plane
crashed while landing in fog near an airport on East Timor's north
coast, killing all six people aboard.
(AP, 1/31/03)
2003 Feb 2, Chechen rebel attacks
and mines killed 5 Russian servicemen and wounded 8.
(AP, 2/3/03)
2003 Feb 7, Chechen rebel attacks
and land mines killed 10 soldiers and police over the last 24 hours.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 7, In Bogota, Colombia, a
car bomb tore through the El Nogal social club, killing at least 25
people, wounding more than 150.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 10, Moscow appointed a
new prime minister of Chechnya. Anatoly Popov replaced Mikhail Babich,
who resigned under pressure 2 days earlier after a dispute with his
superior, the chief of the Moscow-backed administration, Akhmad Kadyrov.
(AP, 2/10/03)
2003 Feb 14, Russian lawmakers
were expected to pass bills paving the way for the break-up of its
electricity monopoly, the Unified Energy System (RAO).
(WSJ, 2/13/03, p.A10)
2003 Mar 1, A small plane
crashed in central Russia, killing 11 people.
(AP, 3/1/03)
2003 Mar 5, The foreign
ministers of France, Germany and Russia said they will block any
attempt to get UN approval for war against Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 6, The United States
ratified a treaty on cutting active U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear
warheads by two-thirds.
(AP, 3/6/04)
2003 Mar 9, In Chechnya 2
Russian armored personnel carriers opened fire in Staraya Sunzha,
killing 2 policemen.
(AP, 3/12/03)
2003 Mar 10, Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned the Kremlin would vote against the
US and British resolution that gives Saddam Hussein a March 17 deadline
to disarm.
(AP, 3/10/03)
2003 Mar 11, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin bolstered the clout of the Federal Security Service
(FSB) by giving it control over the country’s border guards and
government communications.
(AP, 3/11/03)
2003 Mar 15, In Chechnya 6 Russian
soldiers were killed by rebel fire and mines. Attackers destroyed 2
polling stations ahead of the Mar 23 constitutional referendum.
(SFC, 3/17/03, p.A4)
2003 Mar 23, A Chechen referendum
strongly approved a new constitution that confirmed Chechnya as part of
Russia and endorsed rules for electing a Chechen president and
parliament.
(AP, 3/23/03)(AP, 3/24/03)(SFC, 3/24/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 24, Russian officials
declared that the approval of a new constitution by Chechnya's voters
completely discredited the separatist cause, further dimming hopes that
the Kremlin would negotiate an end to the 3 1/2-year war.
(AP, 3/24/03)
2003 Mar 24, British police
arrested Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky at the request of Russian
authorities. A charge alleged that between Jan. 1, 1994, and Dec. 31,
1995, he defrauded the Administration of Samara Region of 60 billion
rubles whilst being director of Logovaz.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 27, Russia's Evgeni
Plushenko won his 2nd World Figure Skating Championships title, edging
American Tim Goebel.
(AP, 3/27/04)
2003 Mar 28, Chechen rebels killed
six Russian soldiers and two riot police.
(AP, 3/29/03)
2003 Apr 6, Police in Chechnya
said they had discovered four graves filled with disfigured bodies,
many of them with their heads and arms cut off. Pro-Moscow Chechen
policeman Ruslan Visarigov was killed by a mine near his home in the
Shelkovskaya district. Rebels killed 4 servicemen and wounded 10 others
in attacks over the past 24 hours.
(AP, 4/6/03)(AP, 4/7/03)
2003 Apr 7, In the northern
Siberian republic of Yakutia a fire engulfed an old wooden school,
killing 21 students and a teacher.
(AP, 4/7/03)
2003 Apr 8, In Chechnya a Russian
armored personnel carrier hit a land mine in Grozny and exploded,
killing two soldiers and injuring several others.
(AP, 4/8/03)
2003 Apr 10, In Dagestan, Russia,
a fire killed 28 deaf children in a boarding school in Makhachkala.
Fires in Russia killed some 50 people a day, i.e. 18,000 a year.
(AP, 4/10/03)(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A3)
2003 Apr 11, The leaders of
Russia, France and Germany gathered for a summit that was expected to
push for the United Nations to play the leading role after the end of
hostilities in Iraq.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Apr 17, Sergei Yushenkov
(52), co-chairman of the Liberal Russia Party, was shot to death in
front of his home in Moscow.
(SFC, 4/18/03, p.A6)
2003 Apr 20, Chechen rebels opened
fire on Russian troops, killing 7 soldiers and wounding 7 others.
(AP, 4/20/03)
2003 Apr 26, Russia lanced a Soyuz
rocket with a 2-man crew to keep the space station operating while
Shuttle flights are suspended.
(WSJ, 4/28/03, A1)
2003 Apr 28, The Soyuz space
capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian space crew docked with the
international space station.
(AP, 4/28/04)
2003 May 3, In far eastern Russia
a transport helicopter crashed as it returned from dropping water on a
forest fire, killing all 12 people on board.
(AP, 5/3/03)
2003 May 4, A Soyuz spacecraft
safely delivered a three-man, US-Russian crew to Earth in the first
landing since the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 26, China's Pres. Hu
Jintao arrived in Moscow for talks with Pres. Putin.
(SFC, 5/27/03, p.A12)
2003 May 28, Russia's upper house
of parliament ratified a landmark nuclear deal with the United States
that slashes both nation's nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
(AP, 5/28/03)
2003 May 28, Russia confirmed its
first case of SARS on the border with China in a major embarrassment
for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao.
(Reuters, 5/28/03)
2003 May 28, Chinese President Hu
Jintao called for a "multipolar world" and a strategic partnership with
Russia to counter U.S. dominance, and oil executives signed a
preliminary deal for pipeline to carry Siberian oil to China.
(AP, 5/29/03)
2003 May 30, A rebel ambush and
other attacks killed five Russian soldiers and wounded 11 others in and
around the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi and Hu Jintao, the new president
of China, agreed in a summit to work at defusing tensions over North
Korea.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 31, Russia officially
premiered the reborn Amber Room as part of the 300th anniversary of St.
Petersburg.
(SFC, 5/31/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 5, A bomber attacked a
bus near a Russian military air base near Chechnya on Thursday, killing
herself and at least 16 others.
(AP, 6/5/03)
2003 Jun 6, Russia's parliament
approved an amnesty for Chechen rebels who agree to disarm. Pres.
Vladimir Putin presented the move as a major step toward peace.
(AP, 6/6/03)
2003 Jun 7, In Chechnya a fierce
battle between rebels and Russian troops raged into its second day,
leaving six servicemen dead.
(AP, 6/7/03)
2003 Jun 16, An explosion
collapsed the ceiling in the Ziminka mine in the town of Prokopyevsk,
one of central Siberia's oldest coal mines, killing 11 miners and
trapping 4 others, who were later rescued.
(AP, 6/17/03)(AP, 6/18/03)
2003 Jun 22, Russian private
television station whose critical reporting had irritated the Kremlin
was taken off the air and replaced by a state-run sports channel.
(AP, 6/22/03)
2003 Jun 24, Pres. Vladimir Putin
flew to London to be feted as the guest of Queen Elizabeth II in the
first state visit by a Russian leader to Britain since Czar Alexander
II in 1874.
(AP, 6/24/03)
2003 Jun 30, In Moscow an
investigation of 700 police officers of the criminal Investigation
Dept. began as "Operation Werewolves" continued into a 2nd week.
(SFC, 7/3/03, p.A14)
2003 Jul 1, Roman Abramovich,
Russian billionaire and governor of Chukotka, bought England’s Chelsea
football club in a deal worth £140m ($233m).
(WSJ, 1/10/07,
p.A14)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3036838.stm)
2003 Jul 2, Russian authorities
detained Platon Lebedev, a close partner of Russia's richest man,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on suspicion of defrauding the state of $283
million in the 1994 privatization of the Apatit fertilizer company.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Yuri Shchekochikhin
(b.1950), a deputy editor for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta and member of
parliament, died of a mysterious allergic reaction. He had long
campaigned against Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Friends and
relatives were convinced that he was poisoned.
(WSJ, 12/8/06, p.A12)
2003 Jul 5, In Russia 2 women
suicide bombers blew themselves up at a giant rock festival in suburban
Moscow, leaving 14 victims killed.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2003 Jul 12, In southern Chechnya
rebels ambushed a Russian military vehicle and staged hit-and-run
attacks against federal positions, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 13.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 17, In Russia's Dagestan
region a shrapnel-filled bomb exploded near a police station, killing
at least four people and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 28, A mass grave was
discovered in the mountainous Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, a
poor mountainous region close to Chechnya, with the remains of men,
women and children who died 10 to 20 years ago.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, A land mine
explosion shattered a military convoy near the border with rebel
Chechnya, killing five Russian soldiers.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2003 Aug 1, A suicide bomber
rammed a truck packed with explosives through the gates of a Russian
military hospital near Chechnya, destroying the building and killing at
least 50 people.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2003 cAug 4, Pres. Putin visited
Malaysia to seal a $900 million sale of Sukhoi fighter jets and tout
Russia's liberal sale policies.
(WSJ, 8/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 7, Chechen rebels using a
shoulder-fired missile shot down a Russian military helicopter in the
mountains, killing three of the crew.
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Aug 7, Gunmen ambushed a
Russian military convoy near the border with Chechnya, killing six
soldiers and wounding seven.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 10, Russian cosmonaut
Yuri Malenchenko, aboard the international space center, married his
earthbound bride, Ekaterina Dmitriev, who was at Johnson Space Center
in Houston, in the first wedding ever conducted from space.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2003 Aug 10, Eight Russian
soldiers and police died in rebel attacks in a day of violence
throughout Chechnya.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 11, Gunmen killed
Nadirshakh Khachilayev, a former lawmaker, in Makhachkala, capital of
Dagestan. In 1998 his armed supporters were accused of seizing a
Dagestani government building during a violent anti-government raid and
Russia's parliament voted to lift his immunity.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 15, A remote mine,
allegedly triggered by Chechen rebels, killed five Russian soldiers
while troops were conducting a search operation in the breakaway
republic. Chechen rebels also fired automatic weapons and lobbed
grenades at a military commander's office, killing two soldiers and
wounding 10.
(AP, 8/15/03)(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 19, Fighting persisted in
Chechnya, with six Russian servicemen killed and 11 others wounded.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 20, In Chechnya fighting
left 8 Russian soldiers and 12 rebels dead.
(SFC, 8/22/03, p.A9)
2003 Aug 20, Authorities in the
Russian Far East lost contact with a helicopter carrying a regional
governor and 16 other people over the volcanoes of the Kamchatka
peninsula.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 23, Emergency officials
discovered the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed Aug 20 in the
Russian Far East. All 20 people aboard were killed. Among the dead were
Igor Farkhutdinov, governor of the oil-rich Sakhalin region, and top
regional officials and business leaders.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2003 Aug 21, Vladimir Gusinsky,
former Russian media mogul who clashed with the Kremlin and fled under
fraud accusations three years ago, was arrested at the Athens
airport. Russia initially sought Gusinsky on charges of
misrepresenting the assets of his company Media-Most to obtain a $262
million loan from the government-controlled gas giant Gazprom. It later
added allegations of money laundering.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 25, In southern Russia a
series of bomb explosions near two cafes and a bus stop in Krasnodar,
about 750 miles south of Moscow, killed at least three people and
wounding ten others.
(AP, 8/25/03)
2003 Aug 26, Two Russian military
helicopters collided over an airfield in Russia's Far East, killing
five people and injuring one.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 28, Akhmad Kadyrov, the
Kremlin-appointed head of Chechnya, said death squads associated with
security forces were seeking to prolong the conflict through abductions
and terror.
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A8)
2003 Aug 30, A Russian
nuclear-powered submarine, K-159, sank in the Barents Sea as it was
being towed to a scrapyard, killing 9 of the 10 sailors on board.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Sep 2, Saudi Arabia's Crown
Prince Abdullah met Russia's Pres. Putin on the first visit to
post-Soviet Russia by a Saudi leader, aimed at coordinating oil exports
and soothing Russian concerns about alleged funding of Chechen rebels
by Saudi charities.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2003 Sep 3, In southern Russia at
Pyatigorsk two bombs exploded under a student-filled commuter train,
killing at least 4 people and wounding 44.
(AP, 9/3/03)(SFC, 9/4/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 7, The Russian drama "The
Return" won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best picture.
Vladimir Girin (15), star of the film, drowned shortly after the film
was shot.
(SFC, 9/8/03, p.D5)
2003 Sep 11, In Russia the 36-card
set "United Cards of America," featuring the key figures in Washington,
went up for sale.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 15, In Ingushetia,
Russia, a truck filled with explosives blew up outside a government
security building, killing at least three people and wounding at least
22.
(AP, 9/15/03)(WSJ, 9/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 18, A Russian military
jet crashed in central Russia during a test flight and four crew
members are missing.
(AP, 9/18/03)
2003 Sep 23, China signed
agreements with Russia and four Central Asian neighbors (Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan) in an effort to strengthen a
7-year-old security alliance and encourage economic links across a
largely undeveloped region.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 25, Yuri Senkevich (66),
a documentary filmmaker and host of Russia's longest running TV show,
died.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 27, President Bush and
Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Iran and North Korea to abandon
suspected nuclear weapons programs, but disagreed over how to deal with
both countries; Putin also declined at the end of a two-day summit at
Camp David to pledge any post-war help for Iraq.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2003 Sep 27, A Russian rocket
brought two Russian and four foreign satellites, including Nigeria's
first, into orbit.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Oct 5, Valentina Matvienko
was elected gov. of St. Petersburg. Turnout was under 30%.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.54)
2003 Oct 9, Russia's defense
minister assured NATO that Moscow is not adopting a more aggressive
nuclear stance and remains committed to cooperation with the Western
alliance.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, In Russia Alexei
Sidorov, editor of the Togliatti Review, died in his wife's arms after
being stabbed several times in a parking lot hear his home. He was the
sixth Togliatti journalist slain in an apparent contract killing in
recent years.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 18, Russia launched a
Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan with a 3-man crew for the int'l. space
station. Aboard were an American, a Russian and a Spaniard.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 22, Tensions spiraled
between Ukraine and Russia over a small island controlling access to
disputed waters. Pres. Leonid Kuchma cut short a Latin American trip to
return home to deal with the issue. The dispute centers on construction
of a dike from the Russian mainland out into the Kerch Strait that
connects the Black and Azov Seas.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 24, In southern Russia a
team of mine rescue workers dug ventilation tunnels and tried to reach
46 coal miners trapped about a half-mile underground in a shaft.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 25, Secret police
arrested YUKOS oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man,
from his jet in Siberia and hauled him before a Moscow court where he
was charged with massive fraud and tax evasion.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 25, In southern Russia
emergency workers rescued 33 cold and exhausted miners from the flooded
Zapadnaya coal mine in Novoshakhtinsk, where they had been trapped for
nearly two days. The location of 13 men remained unknown.
(AP, 10/25/03)(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 27, The weekend arrest of
Russia's oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sparked a plunge in
Russian share prices.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, Chechen rebels killed
8 Russian soldiers in a series of attacks.
(WSJ, 10/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 29, In southern Russia
search crews blasted through solid rock to rescue 11 of 13 coal miners
after six days trapped in a deep shaft. One died and one remained
missing.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 30, President Vladimir
Putin tightened his grip on the Kremlin by relieving his chief of staff
from duty. Putin named Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy chief of staff
and the chairman of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, to succeed
Alexander Voloshin in the post.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct, Pres. Putin attended the
opening a Russian air base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan.
(Econ, 11/1/03, p.40)
2003 Nov 4, Russia's embattled
Yukos oil giant said it appointed Simon Kukes (56), a Russian-born US
citizen as new chief executive to replace jailed chairman Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, who resigned a day earlier.
(AP, 11/4/03)(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 7, The US and Russia
signed an agreement under which Russia would retrieve, within the next
5 to 10 years, uranium from research reactors in 17 countries.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov 7, France and Russia
signed an accord that is intended to pave the way for the eventual
launch of Russian rockets from a French launch pad in South America.
(AP, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 14, In southern Russia an
explosion apparently caused by a remote-controlled bomb ripped through
a house, killing 4 Interior Ministry soldiers and wounding at least 8.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 23, Russian special
forces killed 17 militants near the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt.
The Kremlin later displayed passports belonging to an Algerian, 3 Turks
and Thomas Fischer (25), a German, who were among the dead.
(SFC, 12/25/03, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/14/04, p.A14)
2003 Nov 24, In Russia an
early-morning fire raced through a Moscow dormitory packed with
students from Africa, Asia and Latin America, killing at least 32
people and injuring 139. The toll climbed to 42 with the death of a
Chinese student who suffered serious burns.
(AP, 11/24/03)(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Nov 29, A Chechen leader
wanted in Russia on charges of terrorism and murder has been granted
refugee status in Britain. A British judge had rejected a Russian
government request to extradite Akhmed Zakayev earlier this month.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Dec 2, A senior adviser to
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia cannot ratify the Kyoto
Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions, dealing a mortal blow to
the pact that required Russia's ratification to take effect.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 5, A shrapnel-filled bomb
believed strapped to a suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train
near Chechnya, killing 44 people and wounding nearly 200. Pres. Putin
called it an attempt to disrupt weekend parliamentary elections.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2003 Dec 7, Russia held Duma
elections. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party won about 36% of the
vote. Ultra-nationalists and Communists each won 13%.
(AP, 12/7/03)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 8, The Bush
administration joined European human rights officials in expressing
concern about the fairness of Russian parliamentary elections on Sunday
that delivered big victories to allies of Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 8, Russian military
documents confirmed that dozens of rockets outfitted with dirty bombs
appeared to be missing from the military airport at Tiraspol, the
capital of Transdniestria.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A13)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.46)
2003 Dec 9, In Russia a female
suicide bomber blew herself up outside the National Hotel across from
Moscow's Red Square. At least 6 bystanders were killed and at least 14
wounded.
(AP, 12/9/03)(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 15, At least 25 gunmen
crossed from Chechnya into the Russian region of Dagestan, killing at
least 3 border guards and seizing hostages in a remote mountain village.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 16, Chechen rebels, who
fought their way into the neighboring Dagestan region and occupied a
village, released all their hostages and fled, avoiding capture.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 18, President Vladimir
Putin told Russians that he would seek a second term in the March 14
election. He also agreed to renegotiate debt relief for Iraq.
(AP, 12/18/03)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A9)
2003 Dec 20, In Chechnya 10
Russian servicemen were killed in rebel attacks over 24 hours.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, Oleg Troyanovsky
(84), Soviet diplomat, died.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2003 Dec 22, Russia agreed to
write off 65% of the debt owed by Iraq.
(WSJ, 12/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 27, Russia removed all
Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a
Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of
terrorists. The missiles were flown from Transdniestria Province to the
Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, It was reported that
some 4,400 issues of the book entitled "FSB blows up Russia" and
authored by former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, now exiled in
Britain, were confiscated en route from the western city of Pskov to
Moscow. Litvinenko, a former lieutenant colonel, charged the FSB with
involvement in the bombings on September 9 and 13, 1999 which destroyed
two buildings in Moscow, killing more than 200 people.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 30, The Russian Tax
Ministry slapped a $3.3 billion bill for back taxes, fines and other
penalties on the oil giant Yukos.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.B6)
2003 Dec, In Ozersk, Russia, a
concrete facility for storing nuclear material was completed with more
than $400 million in US funds. Loading it was expected to begin in 2006.
(WSJ, 9/26/05, p.A1)
2003 British Petroleum bought half
of Russia’s Tyumen Oil Co. for $6.75 billion.
(Econ, 5/22/04, Survey p.11)
2004 Jan 9, Russia and Kazakhstan
extended Moscow's lease of the launching pad in Baikonur until 2050. It
served as the only link to the troubled International Space Station.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Jan 12, Olga Ladyzhenskaya
(81), Russian mathematician, died. Her studies in differential
equations helped improve weather forecasts and advance other fields of
science.
(AP, 1/27/04)
2004 Jan 23, Vasili Mitrokhin
(81), a KGB archivist whose defection opened up thousands of spy
agency’s files to the West, died. He had been living in Britain under a
false name and with police protection since his defection in 1992.
(www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040131/world.htm)
2004 Jan 27, In Chechnya at least
8 Russian servicemen were killed and 16 others wounded in the latest
rebel raids and land mine explosions.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Feb 3, In southern Russia a
car bomb exploded at the central market in Vladikavkaz, near the
war-ravaged Chechen Republic.
(AP, 2/3/04)
2004 Feb 5, Seven Russian
servicemen were killed and at least 11 wounded over the last 24 hours
in the latest rebel attacks in the breakaway region of Chechnya.
(AP, 2/5/04)
2004 Feb 6, A bomb ripped through
a Moscow subway car during rush hour morning, killing 41 people and
wounding 134. Chechen rebels were blamed.
(AP, 2/6/04)(SFC, 2/7/04, p.A1)(AP, 2/12/04)
2004 Feb 9, Rebel attacks and land
mines in Chechnya killed at least 9 Russian servicemen and local
pro-Moscow police over the last 24 hours.
(SFC, 2/10/04, p.A6)
2004 Feb 14, In Moscow, Russia, an
indoor water park roof collapsed, killing 28 people and injuring more
than 100.
(AP, 2/15/04)(AP, 2/14/05)
2004 Feb 24, In Russia Pres.
Vladimir Putin dismissed PM Mikhail Kasyanov and all other Cabinet
ministers, in preparation for next month's presidential vote. Putin
named Viktor Khristenko, a former finance official, as acting prime
minister.
(AP, 2/24/04)(WSJ, 2/25/04, p.A1)(Econ, 7/16/05,
p.48)
2004 Feb 25, A US State Dept.
report criticized Russia's human rights record in Chechnya citing
reports of government involvement in "politically motivated
disappearances."
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A3)
2004 Feb 26, President Vladimir
Putin opened a stretch of highway in Russia's Far East that will make
it possible for the first time to drive by road to Asia. The 6,214-mile
Moscow to Vladivostok trek will open a window to the East and the
ever-expanding Chinese market.
(AP, 2/27/04)
2004 Feb 26, Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov said that three Russian intelligence agents had
been arrested in Qatar on suspicion of involvement in the killing of
former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. Ivanov said they were
innocent and demanded their release. On June 30 Qatar sentenced 2 of
the Russian agents to 25 years in jail.
(AP, 2/26/04)(WSJ, 7/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 28, Qatar accused Russia
of detaining two of its nationals in Moscow, after two Russians were
charged with murdering a former rebel Chechen leader in Qatar.
(AP, 2/28/04)
2004 Feb, Khursheda Sultonov (8),
the daughter of an ethnic Tajik, was stabbed to death in St.
Petersburg, Russia, as her father was beaten by youths shouting ethnic
slurs. In March, 2006, a jury convicted 8 youths of hooliganism but
cleared the single suspect charged with killing his daughter on the
charge of bias murder.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2004 Mar 1, President Vladimir
Putin nominated Mikhail Fradkov, a former tax police chief who is
Russia's representative to the European Union, for the post of prime
minister.
(AP, 3/1/04)
2004 Mar 1, US officials said the
United States has turned over seven Russian citizens who were being
held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 3/1/04)
2004 Mar 2, Russian authorities
said they have confirmed that a man killed in the Dagestan region a few
days earlier was Ruslan Gelayev, one of the Chechnya's most powerful
rebel warlords.
(AP, 3/2/04)
2004 Mar 2, In Chechnya rebel
attacks and land mines killed five Russian soldiers.
(AP, 3/3/04)
2004 Mar 14, Russian voters
overwhelmingly handed President Vladimir Putin a second four-year term.
It had long been seen as a foregone conclusion.
(AP, 3/14/04)
2004 Mar 16, In Russia an apparent
natural gas explosion sheared off part of a nine-story apartment
building in the northern city of Arkhangelsk as residents slept,
killing some 58 people. Police suspected that valve scavenging
triggered the blast.
(AP, 3/16/04)(WSJ, 3/17/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/18/04)
2004 Mar 25, A military truck
drove out of a Russian military base in Chechnya after curfew and hit a
mine planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 26, A Moscow court banned
the religious activities of Jehovah's Witnesses from the Russian
capital in a move that critics called a step back for democracy and
religious freedom. A 1997 religion law enshrines Orthodox Christianity
as the country's predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism,
Islam and Judaism, but places restrictions on other groups.
(AP, 3/27/04)
2004 Apr 5, Rebel attacks across
Chechnya killed six Russian soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 7, A Moscow court
sentenced Russian arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin to 15 years in
prison for spying on behalf of the United States.
(AP, 4/7/04)
2004 Apr 8, A Moscow court handed
down a 20-year prison sentence to a Chechen woman who was earlier
convicted of carrying a bomb that killed an explosives expert.
(AP, 4/8/04)
2004 Apr 10, In Siberia an
apparent methane blast ripped through a coal mine, killing at least 40
miners. 7 were missing.
(AP, 4/10/04)(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Apr 11, Arjan Erkel, A Dutch
aid worker who headed the North Caucasus mission of Medecins Sans
Frontieres and was kidnapped in Russia nearly two years ago, was freed
in a police operation in Dagestan.
(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Apr 12, Chechnya rebels
killed 10 Russian soldiers, including five whose convoy was shelled
while driving through an insurgent stronghold.
(AP, 4/12/04)
2004 Apr 12, In Russia a bomb
exploded on the roof of a businessman's armored car in Moscow, killing
at least four people including the businessman.
(AP, 4/12/04)
2004 Apr 14, Russia said it will
begin the evacuation of some of its citizens from Iraq on in light of
the deteriorating security situation in that country.
(AP, 4/14/04)
2004 Apr 16, Abu Walid, Saudi-born
rebel commander also known as Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, was killed by
Russian government forces in Chechnya.
(AP, 4/19/04)
2004 Apr 19, A Russian rocket
roared into space carrying an American, a Russian and a Dutchman to the
international space station on the 3rd manned mission since the halt of
the US shuttle program.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.A5)(AP, 4/19/05)
2004 Apr 22, Russian tax
inspectors raided the Yukos head office.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.64)
2004 Apr 29, A Russian court
acquitted 4 commando officers in the shooting deaths of 6 Chechen
civilians, after the officers admitted in court that they mistakenly
opened fire on their vehicle and set the car on fire to conceal the
incident based on orders from superiors.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.A3)
2004 May 9, Akhmad Kadyrov (52),
the Kremlin-backed president of Russia's warring Chechnya region, was
killed along with 23 others when an explosion tore through a stadium in
Grozny, during Victory Day observances marking the defeat of the Nazis
in World War II. Russian Sergei Abramov was named acting president.
(SFC, 5/10/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A7)(AP, 5/9/05)
2004 May 10, In Iraq one Russian
worker was killed and two were taken hostage 18 miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 5/11/04)
2004 May 15, Visiting U.S.
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Saturday discussed the next steps necessary to bring
stability to Iraq.
(AP, 5/15/04)
2004 May 17, Two Russian workers
held hostage in Iraq for a week were freed.
(AP, 5/17/04)
2004 May 18, Chechen rebels
ambushed 2 military vehicles killing 8 Russian soldiers and
4-pro-Mosciw police officers.
(WSJ, 5/19/04, p.A1)
2004 May 19, A Moscow court
sentenced Mikhail Trepashkin, a former intelligence agent, to 4 years
in prison, on a charge of revealing state secrets. The charge was
related to Trepashkin’s investigations of 4 bombings in apartments
across Russia in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen separatists.
(SFC, 5/20/04, p.A10)
2004 May 19, Antonina Presnyakova,
Russian Ebola researcher, died following an accidental needle stick
containing the deadly virus. She worked at the Vektor State Research
Center of Virology and Biotechnology outside Novosibirsk in central
Siberia.
(AP, 5/25/04)
2004 May 21, The European Union
confirmed its backing for Russia to join the World Trade Organization,
and Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow in turn would speed up
ratification of the troubled Kyoto accord on global warming.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 26, In Iraq masked gunmen
attacked Russian technicians heading to work at a major electric power
station, killing two of them. In Moscow, the firm's executive director,
Alexander Rybinsky, announced the full evacuation of company personnel
from Iraq. Some 241 employees are expected to start leaving.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 May 26, In Russia Pres. Putin
gave his state-of–the-union address and called for an expansion of the
oil export capacity.
(WSJ, 5/27/04, p.A1)
2004 May, Andrei Kozlov (41), the
top deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank, yanked the license of
Sodbiznesbank, a midsize Moscow bank, for money laundering.
(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.A6)
2004 Jun 1, Leonid Parfyonov, a
leading Russian television news anchor, was dismissed and the his show,
"Namedni (Recently)," shut down after the program tried to broadcast an
interview with the widow of a slain Chechen separatist leader.
(AP, 6/2/04)
2004 Jun 4, In central Russia a
bomb hidden behind a kiosk exploded in a crowded market in Samara. 10
people were killed and 37 wounding.
(AP, 6/5/04)
2004 Jun 7, Russian President
Vladimir Putin flew to Mexico for talks with his Pres. Fox, who has
said he hoped to increase military cooperation with Moscow. Putin, the
1st Russian head-of-state to visit Mexico, said the two major oil
producing nations should share knowledge on oil exploration and the
energy sector.
(AP, 6/7/04)
2004 Jun 12, A parade in Moscow
celebrated the Day of Russia. Formerly known as Independence Day, the
holiday marks the Russian parliament's June 12, 1990, declaration of
sovereignty from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2004 Jun 16, President Vladimir
Putin signed a strategic partnership deal with Uzbekistan, seeking to
restore Russian influence.
(AP, 6/16/04)
2004 Jun 19, Nikolai Girenko (64),
prominent human rights defender, was shot and killed at his home in St.
Petersburg, Russia. Investigators believed that his work as an expert
witness in racism trials and investigations of neo-Nazis is the most
likely motive for his murder.
(SSFC, 8/14/05,
p.A3)(www.amnesty.ie/user/content/view/full/2425)
2004 Jun 19, In Chechnya rebel
attacks killed seven Russian soldiers and police officers over the last
24 hours.
(AP, 6/19/04)
2004 Jun 22, Thousands of Russian
troops poured into Nazran, Ingushetia, chasing Chechen rebels who set
fire to police and government buildings and killed over 90 people in
brazen overnight attacks.
(AP, 6/22/04)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.21)
2004 Jun 24, In Russia Yukos named
Steven Theede, an American oil industry veteran, as chief executive.
Yukos faced a $3.41 billion bill for back taxes.
(WSJ, 6/25/04, p.B2)
2004 Jul 1, Interfax news reported
that the Russian Tax Service is demanding another $3.3 billion from the
Yukos oil company in back taxes for 2001.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 2, Yukos, Russia's
largest oil producer with an output of 1.7 million barrels per day,
warned that it may have to shut down as a result of the legal onslaught.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 7, In Russia the board of
Guta Bank approved its sale to the state-owned Vneshtorgbank. A day
earlier Guta had announced a suspension of payments.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.66)
2004 Jul 9, Paul Klebnikov (41),
the American editor of Forbes Magazine's Russian edition and author of
a book about tycoon Boris Berezovsky, was shot to death. Klebnikov was
also the author of “Conversation with a Barbarian,” about organized
crime in Russia’s continuing war in Chechnya. In Nov. Muslim Ibragimov,
aka Kazbek Dukuzov, was arrested in Belarus. He was later extradited to
Moscow in 2005 and accused of involvement in the slaying. Russian
prosecutors later determined that Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, a former
separatist Chechen official who was the subject of a book by U.S.
journalist Paul Klebnikov, ordered the murder.
(AP, 7/9/04)(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/24/05,
p.A13)(AP, 6/16/05)
2004 Jul 13, Chechnya's acting
president escaped injury in the Chechen capital when an explosion hit
his motorcade, but one person was killed and three were wounded. A
separate clash left 18 soldiers dead.
(AP, 7/13/04)(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 19, President Vladimir
Putin dismissed the military's chief of general staff and other top
military and law enforcement officials after a devastating assault by
militants in southern Russia last month.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul, In Russia the film
“Night Watch,” directed by Timur Bekmambetov, took in $8.5 million in
sales in its 1st 11 days. It was based on the sci-fi trilogy by Sergei
Lukyanenko that told the tale of a thousand-year-old battle between
forces of good and evil.
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.E5)
2004 Jul, Yuri Levintoff was
recruited by Boris Barshevsky, a Boston-area taxi driver, to help
organize paid protesters for rallies in NYC against Chechen
separatists. The rallies were then filmed by Russian state television.
(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)
2004 Aug 14, In central Russia a
crowded minibus crashed into a car on a highway linking the Volga River
cities of Ulyanovsk and Kazan, touching off a fire and killing all 15
people.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 16, In Russia the Novy
Ochevidets (New Eyewitness) magazine was introduced in Moscow. It
resembled the New Yorker.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 22, Pres. Putin flew to
Chechnya in advance of elections. Overnight attacks killed at least 30
people.
(SFC, 8/23/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 24, A Russian airliner
crashed and a second disappeared from radar about the same time night
after both planes took off from the same Moscow airport, raising fears
that terrorism was involved. A distress signal was activated on the
second plane. All 89 passengers and crew were killed, 46 aboard a
TU-154 and 43 aboard a TU-134.
(AP, 8/25/04)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 27, Officials said one of
two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought
down by a terrorist act, after finding traces of explosives in the
plane's wreckage. An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for
the attack in a Web statement. Chechen women Amanta Nagayeva (30) and
S. Dzhebirkhanova (27) had purchased their tickets at the last minute.
(AP, 8/27/04)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A8)
2004 Aug 28, Officials said they
had found traces of the explosive hexogen on the wreckage of the second
of two Russian airliners that crashed just minutes apart earlier this
week. Attention focused on the roles of two dead female passengers
believed to be of Chechen origin.
(AP, 8/28/04)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A8)
2004 Aug 28, The foreign ministers
of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan approved Russian
membership to their economic block at talks in Astana, the Kazakh
capital.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 29, Nikolai Getman
(b.1917), Russian artist and gulag survivor (1946-1953), died in Orel,
Russia.
(WSJ, 9/22/04,
p.D12)(http://jamestown.org/press_details.php?press_id=11)
2004 Aug 31, A woman strapped with
explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station,
killing at least 10 people.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2004 Sep 1, In Beslan, Russia,
more than a dozen militants wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a school
in North Ossetia, a region bordering Chechnya, taking hostage some 300
people, half of them children. They threatening to blow up the building
if police storm it and at least eight people were killed.
(AP, 9/1/04)(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 2, In Beslan, Russia,
camouflage-clad commandos carried crying babies away from a school
where gunmen holding hundreds of hostages freed at least 26 women and
children.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 3, Commandos stormed a
school in southern Russia and battled Chechen separatist rebels holding
hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in
blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. Over 330 people, including
155 children, were killed in the violence that ended a hostage standoff
with militants in Beslan, Russia. 31 of 32 hostage takers were killed.
6 Chechens and 4 Ingush were identified among the hostage takers. In
2006 a woman died from her injuries in Beslan bringing the total deaths
to 334.
(SFC, 9/4/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/7/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/10/04,
p.A1)(AP, 12/9/07)
2004 Sep 4, A shaken President
Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness
after more than 330 people were killed in a hostage-taking at a
southern school.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2004 Sep 13, Pres. Putin announced
a series of measures that would enhance Kremlin power. These included
presidential selection of the governors for Russia’s 89 regions.
(Econ, 9/18/04, p.55)
2004 Sep 14, Russia announced it
was pouring $5.4 billion in additional funding into its security
agencies.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 17, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia was "seriously preparing" for pre-emptive strikes
against terrorists, as Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev took
responsibility for a school hostage-taking and other attacks that had
claimed more than 430 lives.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2004 Sep 17, The main Chechen
rebel Web site, Kavkaz-Center, posted what it said was an e-mail from
Basayev, claiming his "Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Brigade" was
responsible for the bombings of two passenger jets last month, a
suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station and the school siege in
the southern city of Beslan.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 18, Moscow police
arrested Alexander Pumane, a former submarine officer, on suspicious
behavior and found mines and explosives in his car. Pumane soon died
under interrogation.
(Econ, 10/23/04, p.52)
2004 Sep 20, Russia's embattled
Yukos oil giant raised the stakes in its bitter standoff with the
Kremlin as the company slashed supplies to China in a move analysts
said was designed to cause maximum embarrassment in Moscow.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 23, A senior Russian
official said his country’s appetite for counterfeits costs
manufacturers tens of billions of dollars each year: "Billions, tens of
billions of dollars of fake goods are in circulation."
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 29, In a deal paving the
way for future joint ventures, U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips has won an
auction with a bid of nearly $2 billion US for the Russian government's
7.6 per cent stake in Russia's Lukoil - the world's No. 2 oil company
by reserves.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov met with President Fidel Castro and other Cuban
leaders as the countries worked on re-creating more modest versions of
political and economic alliances that unraveled after the Soviet
Union's collapse.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 30, Russia's Cabinet
approved the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Oct 5, A Russian cargo plane
crashed in war-ravaged southern Sudan, killing all four people onboard.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Oct 6, The Interfax news
agency reported that the key production unit of beleaguered Russian oil
giant Yukos was handed a back taxes bill for $951 million.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Oct 10, In
Karachayevo-Cherkessia, a Russian republic north of Abkhazia, 7
businessmen were killed and their bodies thrown down a mine. The men
disappeared after being summoned to a meeting at a cottage belonging to
Ali Kaitov, son-in-law of regional Pres. Mustafa Batdyev. On Nov 9 a
crowd stormed the local government building in Cherkessk.
(AP, 11/9/04)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.21)
2004 Oct 13, Russia and China
settled a dispute over their 2,700-mile border during a visit by Pres.
Putin.
(WSJ, 10/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 22, Russia's lower house
of parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming.
(AP, 10/22/04)
2004 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule,
carrying 2 Russians and an American, landed in Kazakhstan. The crew had
spent 6 months at the int’l. space station.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.A7)
2004 Oct 27, In Russia the Kyoto
Protocol overcame its final legislative hurdle when the upper house of
parliament ratified the global climate pact and sent it on to Pres.
Vladimir Putin to sign.
(AP, 10/27/04)
2004 Oct 29, The Russian State
Duma approved President Vladimir Putin's plan to replace direct popular
election of regional leaders with a system under which they would be
nominated by the president.
(AFP, 10/29/04)
2004 Nov 2, Shares in Russia's No.
1 oil producer, Yukos, plummeted on news that tax authorities had
served the company with fresh back tax bills for nearly $10 billion US,
bringing the company's total tax debt to some $17.6 billion.
(AP, 11/2/04)
2004 Nov 4, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed a bill confirming his country's ratification of
the Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 11/5/04)
2004 Nov 17, President Vladimir
Putin said that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile
unlike those held by other countries.
(AP, 11/17/04)(SFC, 11/18/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 3, In Russia 15 people
were killed when a fire broke out in a furniture factory warehouse in
the Moscow region.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Russia said India
should become a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security
Council if the top decision-making body is enlarged to reflect
post-Cold War realities.
(Reuters, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 5, President Vladimir
Putin made the first official visit by a Russian leader to Turkey,
seeking to boost trade and counterterrorism cooperation between the two
countries.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Dec 8, Russian authorities
slapped a back tax bill of almost 160 million dollars (121 million
euros) on the number two mobile phone operator Vimpelcom, in what is
widely seen as a government-linked campaign against the firm.
(AFP, 12/8/04)
2004 Dec 9, Interfax reported that
Russian authorities have assessed a new tax claim for $114 million on
one of Yukos' smaller subsidiaries.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 12, In Russia hundreds of
Kremlin gathered on Constitution Day to denounce a retreat from
democracy as Pres. Putin signed a bill eliminating gubernatorial
elections.
(SFC, 12/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 13, The Chinese
government said China and Russia will hold their first joint military
exercise next year.
(AP, 12/13/04)
2004 Dec 14, Russia opened talks
to buy back $10 billion in sovereign debt. This would cover some 22% of
its $45 billion debt to sovereign creditors.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A12)
2004 Dec 14, It was reported that
air cargo planes used by American subcontractors in Iraq were linked to
Victor bout, a reputed Russian arms trafficker.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 19, Russia's little-known
BaikalFinansGroup bought Yuganskneftegaz, the core production unit of
oil giant Yukos, at auction for $9.3 billion US.
(AP, 12/19/04)(Econ, 1/1/05, p.49)
2004 Dec 20, The civil liberties
group Freedom House said Russia has fallen to the status of “not free”
for the 1st time since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 21, Siemens CEO Heinrich
von Pierer said his German industrial conglomerate has signed a $2
billion deal to provide Russia's national railway with 60 high speed
trains. The InterCityExpress (ICE) trains would initially run between
Moscow and St. Petersburg at speeds of up to 155 miles per hour. They
also will be used between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, Finland, and
between other large cities within Russia.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2004 Dec 22, In an apparently
secret deal, the state-owned Rosneft oil company bought
BaikalFinansGroup, the obscure company that purchased Yukos' most
important production unit at auction Dec 19. The Yuganskneftegaz
subsidiary was sold for $9.3 billion, half of what foreign auditors say
it was worth.
(AP, 12/23/04)
2004 Dec 23, Russia launched an
unmanned cargo ship to the int’l. space station.
(WSJ, 12/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 24, Russia successfully
test-fired a mobile version of the intercontinental Topol-M ballistic
missile in the last of four test-firings before its deployment next
year.
(AP, 12/24/04)
2004 Dec 26, The Russian unmanned
cargo ship, Progress M-51, docked at the int’l. space station with
fresh supplies.
(SFC, 12/25/04, p.A5)
2004 Dec 29, Ramzan Kadyrov, a
pro-Moscow Chechen leader accused by rights groups of kidnapping and
murder, earned Russia's highest award for "valor and heroism."
(AP, 12/29/04)
2004 Dec 30, Russia said it would
form a new state oil company base on the core operations of Yukos and
that it would offer a minority stake to China.
(WSJ, 12/31/04, p.A1)
2004 James H. Billington, US
Librarian of Congress, authored "Russia In Search of Itself."
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.D8)
2004 Russia’s Pres. Vladimir Putin
signed an order establishing the "Day of People's Unity," designed to
commemorate Moscow's liberation from Polish invaders in 1612. It was
intended to replace the Nov 7 holiday marking the Bolshevik Revolution.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Jan 1, Russia was forecast
for 5.8% annual GDP growth with a population at 143.7 million and GDP
per head at $4,330.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)
2005 Jan 3, Russian President
Vladimir Putin stripped many of the duties of his top economic adviser,
an outspoken critic who has accused the Kremlin of trying to muzzle
voices of dissent and civil society in Russia.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 8, Russian troops killed
5 alleged militants hiding in a house in the city of Nazran,
Ingushetia, in a firefight.
(AP, 1/8/05)(SSFC, 1/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 11, Russia's Federal
Statistics Service said inflation was 11.7 per cent in 2004, slower
than the 12 per cent rate for 2003 but still above government's target.
(AP, 1/11/05)
2005 Jan 12, A US-sponsored study
estimated that one million Russians were infected with the AIDS virus.
(WSJ, 1/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 13, Israel's foreign
minister said the planned sale of advanced Russian missiles to Syria
will disrupt regional stability and Moscow should call off the deal.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 13, A Russian passenger
plane with 10 people on board went missing on a flight over Siberia.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 15, Massive
demonstrations across Russia posed a major challenge to President
Vladimir Putin, and Moscow authorities bowed to the demands of
protesting retirees by restoring some of their state benefits, such as
free public transportation and subsidized medicine.
(AP, 1/15/05)
2005 Jan 15, Gunmen shot and
killed three police officers as authorities stormed a house in
Kaspiisk, a port on the Caspian Sea in the Russian province of
Dagestan. Riot police and other security forces besieged a house in the
provincial capital, Makhachkala, where gunmen were hiding and one
officer was killed.
(AP, 1/16/05)
2005 Jan 16, In Russia protests by
retirees against the loss of welfare benefits swept President Vladimir
Putin's home city for the second straight day.
(AP, 1/16/05)
2005 Jan 17, Russian police
stopped angry retirees from blocking traffic, the third day of protests
in President Vladimir Putin's hometown against welfare benefit cutoffs.
(AP, 1/17/05)
2005 Jan 19, Russia’s finance
minister, Alexei Kudrin, said the government plans to compensate
pensioners for lost benefits using windfall from oil receipts.
(WSJ, 1/20/05, p.A12)
2005 Jan 22, Thousands of poor
Russians demonstrated across Russia as part of a campaign of protest
against abolition of some benefits that has dented Pres. Putin's
popularity.
(Reuters, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 27, In southern Russia
hundreds of police and soldiers stormed an apartment building in
Nalchik, the regional capital of the province of Kabardino-Balkariya,
killing seven suspected Islamic extremists linked to Chechen rebels
after a two-day standoff.
(AP, 1/27/05)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.21)
2005 Jan 29, In Russia the
fragmented opposition gathered pace as thousands of communists,
liberals and radical youth activists joined forces to protest against
the loss of Soviet-era benefits.
(Reuters, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan, The Moscow Bureau for
Human Rights reported that some 50,000 neo-Nazis live in Russia.
Neo-Nazis were responsible for at least 44 people killed across Russia
in 2004.
(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Feb 1, Russia’s finance
minister said windfall oil export revenues will be used to repay nearly
$3.3 billion in International Monetary Fund loans early, saving the
country some $200 million in interest payments.
(AP, 2/1/05)
2005 Feb 1, China lent Russia $6
billion to help finance the nationalization of OAO Yukos. The loan was
in effect a forward payment for some 48 million metric tons of crude
oil.
(WSJ, 2/2/05, p.A2)
2005 Feb 2, Russia's government
said the country's economy grew by 7.1 percent last year, an increase
in its preliminary estimates.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Feb 2, China and Russia
agreed to set up a new body to consult more closely on security issues.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Feb 3, The Kremlin said
President Vladimir Putin has signed a resolution that would have
Russian troops join a proposed U.N. peacekeeping operation in Sudan.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 4, Russia lashed out at
Britain after an independent TV channel there aired an interview with
Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, saying the broadcast amounted to
terrorist propaganda and calling for an investigation.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 12, Tens of thousands of
Russians protested across the country against a law replacing medical
and transportation benefits for pensioners with cash payments, with
many calling for the ouster of Vladimir Putin's government.
(AP, 2/12/05)
2005 Feb 16, In southern Russia a
car bomb killed 3 people outside a government building in Dagestan.
(WSJ, 2/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 18, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin said that Moscow will continue its nuclear cooperation
with Iran and that he is convinced Tehran does not intend to develop
atomic weapons.
(AP, 2/18/05)
2005 Feb 20, In southern Russian
security forces stormed an apartment building in Nalchik,
Kabardino-Balkariya, where a small group of suspected Islamic militants
had barricaded themselves, killing all the rebels.
(AP, 2/20/05)
2005 Feb 27, Iran and Russia
signed a deal that would deliver nuclear fuel to the Middle East
country for the startup of its first reactor.
(AP, 2/27/05)
2005 Mar 8, A spokesman for
Russian forces said Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has been
killed. Russia had offered a $10 million reward.
(AP, 3/8/05)(WSJ, 3/16/05, p.A1)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.84)
2005 Mar 10, At least 15 Russian
servicemen were killed and 12 others were injured when a federal
helicopter crashed in Chechnya.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 11, Garry Kasparov,
Russian chess master ranked No. 1 since 1984, announced his retirement.
His future plans included writing and political action, which included
a lead role in Committee 2008: Free Choice, a group formed by liberal
opposition leaders.
(SFC, 3/12/05, p.A10)
2005 Mar 12, Spanish police said
they had cracked a money-laundering operation worth up to 250 million
euros ($335.8 million) which might have links to YUKOS, but had not
specified what those links might be.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 16, A Russian turboprop
airliner carrying at least 52 people crashed and caught fire while
trying to land near an oil port along the Arctic coast. At least 29
people, mostly Yukoil workers, were killed.
(AP, 3/16/05)(WSJ, 3/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 17, Anatoly Chubais, head
of Russia’s state-controlled Unified Energy Systems power grid, was
ambushed on his way to work near his country home outside Moscow by
assailants who detonated a bomb and raked his armored car with
automatic weapons fire. No one was hurt. In September prosecutors
indicted 3 former servicemen in connection with the attempted
assassination. Formal charges were filed against retired military
intelligence colonel, Vladimir Kvachkov, and former paratroopers Robert
Yashin and Alexander Naidyonov.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2005 Mar 26, A fire swept through
a sprawling Moscow art market popular with tourists for its unusual
antiques from around the former Soviet Union and sometimes bargain
prices, and news reports said two people were killed.
(AP, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 28, Pres. Vladimir Putin
ordered the Russian government to draft legal reforms that would close
the book on shady privatization deals of the 1990s and streamline tax
collection.
(AP, 3/28/05)
2005 Mar, A Russian pro-Kremlin
youth group called Nashi (our own) began demonstrations to counter
detractors of Pres. Putin. Other youth groups included: Young Yabloko,
a traditional liberal party; the National Bolsheviks, a radical
populist, anti-capitalist group following writer and poet Eduard
Limonov; and Walking Together, another pro-Kremlin group that condemns
the undermining of Russian culture.
(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.A18)
2005 Apr 1, It was reported that
the National Bolsheviks in Russia, led by Eduard Limonov (62), numbered
about 15,000.
(WSJ, 4/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 10, Colonel General
Anatoly Trofimov, a former head of the FSB branch for Moscow and the
Moscow region, was killed when the gunmen opened fire on his jeep in a
northern residential area of Moscow.
(http://tinyurl.com/4vn9s)
2005 Apr 15, A Russian Soyuz-FG
rocket lifted off at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying 3 men to the int’l.
space station.
(SFC, 4/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 26, President Vladimir
Putin started the first visit to Egypt by a Russian head of state in
more than 40 years, in an effort to reinforce Moscow's political and
economic ties with the Arab world.
(AFP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 27, Vladimir Putin became
the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel, capping a historic
rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter
enemies across the Cold War divide.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 29, Russian President
Vladimir Putin laid a wreath on the late-Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat's tomb and held talks with Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas,
but Palestinians held out little hope for concrete results.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 May 1, Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Alexy II wished health and happiness to millions of Orthodox
Christians as believers marked Easter, the holiest day in the Orthodox
calendar.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 2, Yevgeny Adamov,
Russia's former nuclear energy minister, was arrested in the Swiss
capital on a US warrant accusing him of diverting up to $9 million from
funds intended to improve Russian nuclear security.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 5, Russia's Federal
Security service said it foiled planned terror attacks ahead of Victory
in Europe celebrations, discovering a truck near Grozny packed with
more than a ton of explosives and a cache of poisons allegedly intended
for chemical attacks.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 7, In Riga, Latvia, Pres.
Bush said the Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe after
World War II will be remembered as "one of the greatest wrongs of
history" and acknowledged that the United States played a significant
role in the division of the continent.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 8, In Moscow Pres. Bush
and Vladimir Putin went out of their way to take a unified stand on
Middle East peace and terrorism after sharp words in recent days about
democratic backsliding and postwar Soviet domination.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, Russia began a
pomp-filled, high-security celebration of the 60th anniversary of the
Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 9, World leaders joined
Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin on Red Square for a lavish military parade
celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi
Germany.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 10, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin and top European Union leaders unveiled a new
partnership accord which aims in particular to deepen ties in the
economic sphere, where Europe's thirst for energy dovetails with
Russia's need for investment.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 12, Nikolai Patrushev,
Russia's security chief. said that his agency has uncovered US,
British, Kuwaiti and Saudi spy activity that was being conducted under
the cover of non-governmental organizations. He also suggested that
foreign governments are using NGOs to fund and support changes of power
in former Soviet republics.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 13, Russia struck a
landmark deal to repay up to $15 billion it owes to the West, sealing
its rapid transformation from economic basket case to emerging markets
powerhouse. The deal crowns Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's drive to
use Russia's growing oil wealth to reduce the $43 billion it owes to
the Club's other 18 members,
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 14, Russian security
forces and police killed six suspected militants, including two female
suicide bombers, who had holed up in an apartment in Cherkessk. Russian
forces in Chechnya killed 4 rebels including former separatist vice
president Vakha Arsanov.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 16, Senior Russian
officials said Russia is prepared to reduce its strategic nuclear
arsenal below 1,500 warheads, less than the level agreed to with the
United States, but Moscow is concerned about nuclear threats on its
border.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Russian security
services killed Alash Daudov, a prominent Chechen rebel wanted for a
series of planned chemical attacks.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Russia and Venezuela
signed a contract for 100,000 Russian assault rifles to be provided to
the Latin American nation.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 20, A bomb exploded in an
apartment building in southern Russia's Dagestan region, killing the
area's minister for ethnic relations and his bodyguard.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 25, In Russia electricity
outages crippled large sections of Moscow and nearby regions. Power was
restored the next day.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 27, Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for a power outage that caused
chaos in Moscow. Rebels said they burned a Moscow theater and caused
the blackout.
(AP, 5/27/05)(WSJ, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 30, Russia agreed to
begin withdrawing its troops from two Soviet-era bases in Georgia this
year, resolving one of the most serious disputes between Moscow and its
pro-Western neighbor.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 31, A Russian court
declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges
in a trial widely criticized as politically motivated, sentencing him
to nine years in prison minus time served. Co-defendant Platon Lebedev
also received a 9-year sentence and the 2 men were fined 17 billion
rubles ($615 million).
(AP, 5/31/05)(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A3)
2005 May 31, In Dagestan a police
bus was bombed in Makhachkala and 7 people were killed.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jun 2, Chinese, Indian and
Russian foreign ministers, meeting in Vladivostok, agreed to intensify
joint work against terrorism and underscored their common approach to
international affairs.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, It was reported that
Russia's state-controlled gas giant was negotiating to buy a
controlling share of the influential Izvestia daily from a private
conglomerate, a move that could bring one of the country's largest
private newspapers under firm Kremlin control.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 2, A Moscow district
court found Alexandra Ivannikova guilty of “murder in a state of great
mental agitation.” In 2003 she had stabbed Sergei Bagdasaryan in the
leg while he tried to rape her.
(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.A17)
2005 Jun 4, Masked Chechen
soldiers apparently avenging the killing of a woodcutter raided a tiny
village, beat and killed residents and set homes afire. The raid in
Borozdinovskaya pitted ethnic Chechens against ethnic Avars, marking
the first serious conflict between the two groups. Villagers, failing
to attract local authorities' attention to the abuses, abandoned their
houses June 16 and fled to nearby Kizlyar in Dagestan,
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 6, Chechnya’s
Moscow-backed Pres. Alu Alkhanov said Russian military forces carry out
up to 10 percent of the kidnappings that occur in turbulent Chechnya.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 9, Chinese officials
signed preliminary agreements to invest about $1.5 billion in
construction, timber, agriculture and other industries in Russia.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 12, In Russia an
explosion believed caused by a terrorist bomb derailed a train
traveling from Chechnya to Moscow during a national holiday, injuring
at least 15 people. The Day of Russia holiday, formerly known as
Independence Day, marks the Russian parliament's June 12, 1990,
declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show
opened. The Russian Lavochkin Association demonstrated a new escape pod
for people trapped in tall, burning buildings.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.81)
2005 Jun 14, Japanese automaker
Toyota Motor Corp. broke ground on a new assembly plant in Russia, in a
vote of confidence in the booming Russian consumer market despite
investors' jitters over the Yukos case.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Russia 2
explosions ripped through a petroleum storage depot outside Moscow,
killing two workers, injuring another and forcing the evacuation of
hundreds from nearby homes and a hospital.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Russia authorities
failed to contain a spill of heavy fuel from a derailed train and it
flowed into waterways that supply Moscow with drinking water. Some 770
tons of thick, tar-like fuel spilled from more than a dozen tanker cars
that went off the tracks about 100 miles northwest of Moscow.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 21, A Russian Northern
Fleet submarine launched the world's first solar-sail spacecraft, $4
million Cosmos 1, but the craft failed to reach orbit.
(AFP, 6/22/05)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A4)
2005 Jun 24, Russia, whose last
border guard left the Tajik-Afghan border last week, said Afghanistan's
heroin output was growing at breakneck speed and presented a threat to
the world community.
(Reuters, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 25, In Dagestan, Russia,
4 explosions aimed at police vehicles and transportation links,
including one that derailed a cargo train, wounded eight people.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 28, Russia said it
intends to cancel $2.2 billion owed by the poorest African countries in
support of an initiative by the eight major industrialized nations to
write off more than $40 billion of debt.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, In Dagestan, Russia,
a writer and critic of the Islamist movement was shot to death in
Makhachkala.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jun 29, In the southern
Russian region of Karachayevo-Cherkessiya about 200 ethnic minority
activists occupied the regional government headquarters, demanding
urgent action to save their dwindling population. Members of the tiny
Abazin minority have demanded that the 13 villages where they live be
united in a single district with its own financing. There were fewer
than 30,000 Abazins left in existence, all of them in
Karachayevo-Cherkessiya.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 30, Justice Minister Yuri
Chaika said that Russia was seeking to have assets of the beleaguered
Yukos oil company seized overseas and had asked Netherlands and
Lithuania for help.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Chinese President Hu
Jintao visited Russia and is expected to bolster ties with Beijing's
former rival in hopes of quadrupling their trade turnover to up to $80
billion a year by 2010.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 29, A Russian court
ordered the radical national Bolshevik Party, led by ultranationalist
writer Eduard Limonov, to disband.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 1, In Dagestan, Russia, a
bomb in Makhachkala killed 10 Russian troops.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 5, An alliance of Russia,
China and central Asian nations called for the US and coalition members
in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from member states,
reflecting growing unease over America's regional military presence.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes China, Russia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, In the southern
Russian region of Dagestan an explosion tore through a police post,
killing at least one officer and wounding 3.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 6, A shootout between
police and gunmen with automatic weapons left a bystander and two of
the gunmen dead in the southern Russian region of Dagestan.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 9, The 110-ton barge left
Magadan, Russia, on a two-day journey to Okhotsk, sent out a distress
signal during severe weather, then lost communication. 6 of 10 sailors
were rescued 3 days later.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 11, Russian prosecutors
said they have opened a criminal investigation into former PM Mikhail
Kasyanov (Misha 2%), a potential presidential candidate, for abuse of
office.
(AP, 7/11/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.48)
2005 Jul 11, Russian news media
reported that Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main arms exporter, has signed
a $300 million deal to sell jet fighter engines to China.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, In Russia at least 20
people were killed after arsonists set fire to a store in the northern
city of Ukhta.
(Reuters, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 13, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed a decree stripping the security services of
control over a number of detention centers, satisfying a long-standing
request by Europe's top human rights body.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 16, A Russian air force
helicopter carrying border guards crashed in mountainous southern
Chechnya, killing eight people.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 19, Insurgents set off a
bomb near a police minibus in breakaway Chechnya after luring the
security forces into a trap, killing 14 people, including two children,
and wounding more than 20 others.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia won't allow foreign organizations to finance
political activities in the country.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 21, Russian and US
officials inaugurated a new U.S-financed command center aimed at
improving Russia's ability to prevent trafficking of nuclear materials.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Dagestan, Russia,
the head of traffic police in Izberbash was killed at a traffic stop.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 28, Chechnya’s Shamil
Basayev, linked to a dozen deadly attacks on civilians, admitted he was
a terrorist in an interview being broadcast on ABC News' "Nightline."
The Kremlin denounced the network's decision to run the interview,
which was conducted by well-known Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, In
Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Russia, 2 police officers were shot to death.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 30, A Russian oil tanker
slammed into a St. Petersburg bridge, leaking diesel oil into the Neva
River.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, A Russia newspaper
reported that a strain of bird flu harmful to humans has been found in
an outbreak of the disease in Siberia. The administration of
Novosibirsk ordered the slaughter of 65,000 domestic fowl in 14
villages.
(AP, 7/30/05)(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 2, The Russian Foreign
Ministry said it will not renew the accreditation of ABC-TV after it
broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 4, A mini-submarine
carrying seven Russians became caught on an underwater antenna 600 feet
below the surface of the Pacific Ocean; the men were rescued three days
later with help from a British vessel.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2005 Aug 5, Russia's Agriculture
ministry said bird flu has been officially confirmed in two more
Russian regions, and the disease may also be spreading in Northern
Kazakhstan.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, A Russian Priz AS-28
mini-submarine carrying 7 sailors snagged on a fishing net and was
stuck 625 feet down on the Pacific floor off the Kamchatka Peninsula.
It had only enough air for crewmen to survive one day. The US was
rushing an unmanned vehicle there to help in rescue efforts.
(AP, 8/5/05)(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 7, A British
remote-controlled vehicle cut away undersea cables that snarled a
Russian mini-submarine in deep waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula
allowing it to surface. 7 people trapped for nearly 3 days on the
mini-sub were rescued.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 10, Russia’s Defense
Ministry said more than 3,450 Russian troops have been killed in
Chechnya since federal forces re-entered the southern Russian region
six years ago.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, An assailant beat a
Polish envoy near Poland's Moscow embassy, drawing diplomatic protests
over the second such attack in four days.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 14, A land mine exploded
in Chechnya when Russia troops came to the aid of a local official
whose home was under attack by rebels, killing a senior Russian
military officer and four other soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 16, Russia's Supreme
Court overturned a lower court decision banning the National Bolshevik
Party, handing a rare victory to the radical youth organization known
for flamboyant acts of political protest.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Russia said an
outbreak of bird flu in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans, as teams
of sanitary workers destroyed birds in Siberia in an attempt to prevent
the westward spread of the deadly virus.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 17, Officials said Russia
is investigating bird deaths in a region west of the Ural mountains in
what could become the 1st case of the deadly bird flu virus spreading
to Europe.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 18, China and Russia
began unprecedented joint military exercises involving air, sea and
land forces, as commanders from both nations insisted the war games
weren't meant to intimidate other countries.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 19, Morgan Stanley said
it will start trading Russian stocks, bonds and currency instruments as
early as next month as top investment banks flock to the country to
profit from its soaring markets.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 20, A bomb detonated by
remote control killed at least three police officers in the troubled
southern Russian region of Dagestan and wounded several more.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Interfax reported
that health officials in the western Siberian region of Omsk may have
found the virus on a farm with up to 142,000 birds. Outbreaks were
already confirmed in 40 Russian villages across western Siberia, while
78 other small settlements had suspected cases.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 22, South Korea's Kia
Motors Corp. launched an assembly line producing its Spectra model at a
Russian factory.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 24, Jailed Russian tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky lashed out at the Kremlin and announced a hunger
strike to support his business partner, Platon Lebedev, who was moved
into an isolation cell on Aug 19.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 25, Thousands of Chinese
and Russian troops wrapped up their historic first joint military
exercises with a mock invasion by paratroopers on China's east coast.
The eight-day exercises with 7,000 Chinese troops and 1,800 Russians
underscored growing military ties between the former Cold War enemies.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In the southern
Russian city of Nazran 2 bombs exploded, wounding the
second-highest-ranking official in the mostly Muslim region of
Ingushetia and killing his driver, in what was described as an
assassination attempt.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 26, Jailed Russian tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky ended his nearly weeklong hunger strike after
hearing that his business partner Platon Lebedev was transferred from
solitary confinement to a regular cell.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In Kazan, Russia,
tens of thousands of Tatars, Russians and others packed the main square
for a gala concert to celebrate the millennial anniversary of the Volga
River city.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 31, In Russia Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oil tycoon who was sentenced to nine
years' imprisonment in a politically charged trial this year, said he
will run for a seat in the national parliament.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug, Mikhail Yevdokimov, the
governor of the Altai region of Siberia, was killed when the speeding
car he was riding in smashed into a tree after colliding with the car
driven by Oleg Shcherbinsky. In 2006 Shcherbinsky was sentenced to four
years in a labor camp for his role in the car crash. Shcherbinsky had
testified that the governor was traveling at least 125 mph and that he
had no time to avoid the collision.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2005 Sep 1, Vadim Kouznetsov, the
chair of a powerful UN budget committee, was arrested by the FBI on
money laundering charges. Kouznetsov, who heads the General Assembly
panel that oversees the UN budget, was the 2nd Russian UN official to
be arrested by the FBI for alleged money laundering in recent weeks. On
Aug. 8, Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian who worked in the UN procurement
office, was arrested for allegedly soliciting a bribe from a company
seeking an oil-for-food contract.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Russia's President
Vladimir Putin said the Beslan school siege would be thoroughly
investigated to establish whether official incompetence contributed to
the deaths of 331 hostages.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Two Russian citizens
formerly held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were
released from custody after investigators found no evidence of their
involvement in terrorism-related activity.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, A bomb exploded in a
pile of garbage in the capital of the southern Russian region of
Dagestan, killing a serviceman and wounding five others who had been
searching for explosives.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 4, Russian President
Vladimir Putin sacked navy chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov. The
military faced criticism over its handling of a mini-submarine accident
last month.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 8, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed an
agreement to build a Baltic Sea gas pipeline aimed at boosting Russia's
gas sales to Europe and securing uninterrupted energy supplies for
Germany.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 13, The customs chiefs at
Moscow's international airport and the Pacific port of Nakhodka were
suspended pending a smuggling investigation. Sheremetyevo Airport chief
Igor Volkov and Nakhodka port chief Alexei Kotlyarov were suspended for
a month.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 14, Former Russian PM
Mikhail Kasyanov said he plans to run in the 2008 presidential
election. He urged Russia's fragmented opposition to unite or face at
least another decade of undemocratic rule.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 15, A Russian Su-27
fighter bomber crashed in Lithuania during a flight across the former
Soviet republic to the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Russia launched
experimental broadcasts of a 24-hour English-language satellite TV news
channel aimed at polishing its image abroad and presenting foreign
audiences with its view of the world.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 16, A cargo steamer
overturned and sank in the Russian far northern river port of Dudinka.
The steamer, licensed for 33 tons, was carrying 92 tons of fruit and
vegetables. It was not licensed to carry passengers, but up to 10
people aside from the 5-man crew could have been aboard.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The Lithuanian
government denied Moscow's requests to hand over a Russian pilot whose
fighter jet crashed in the NATO member's territory after violating its
airspace, saying it must first complete an investigation.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 18, Yegor Yakovlev (75),
a journalist whose weekly Soviet newspaper became a flagship of
openness during the glasnost era of Mikhail Gorbachev, died.
(AP, 9/23/05)
2005 Sep 21, The Kremlin issued a
letter from President Vladimir Putin to Jordanian King Abdullah II,
delivered personally by Moscow-backed Chechen President Alu Alkhanov
during his Middle Eastern tour. Putin said in the letter that the
situation in Chechnya was "steadily normalizing." Jordan has a large
Chechen Diaspora.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 21, Russian authorities
blamed a hepatitis A outbreak in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's third
largest city, on an accident in the sewer network. More than 790
people, including 149 children under age 14, remained hospitalized.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 22, A Russian court
rejected Mikhail Khodorkovsky's appeal of his conviction on fraud and
tax evasion charges, but reduced the oil tycoon's prison sentence from
9 years to 8.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 23, Lithuania’s defense
minister said the crash of a Russian military jet in Lithuania was
almost certainly accidental and the pilot will be sent home when the
investigation ends, but he criticized Moscow for sending a plane armed
with missiles into the country's airspace.
(AP, 9/23/05)
2005 Sep 27, In Russia Pres. Putin
fielded questions on live coast-to-coast television and rebuffed the
idea of holding on to the presidency past 2008.
(SFC, 9/28/05, p.A10)
2005 Sep 27, Russia’s navy said it
successfully test-launched a newly-developed intercontinental ballistic
missile.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep 28, Gazprom, the world's
largest natural-gas producer, signed an agreement to buy a majority
stake in the Sibneft oil company for $13.01 billion from Roman
Abramovitch and associates. The deal will significantly further the
state-controlled company's stature in the oil sector as Russian
President Vladimir Putin moves to recapture government influence in the
lucrative energy industry. Gazprom re-registered Sibneft in St.
Petersburg depriving Chukotka a big chunk of tax revenue.
(AP, 9/28/05)(Econ, 10/1/05, p.57)(WSJ, 1/10/06,
p.A14)
2005 Oct 1, A new Russian "public
chamber" met for the first time aiming to improve ties between
officials and society. A day earlier the Kremlin announced the first 42
members of the chamber, an assortment of religious leaders, Olympic
champions, businessmen, trade unionists and others. The members
discussed who else should be included, since they now have to choose a
further 42 people to join their group. They were also reported to have
started to plan their course of action.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, A Russian rocket
roared into space in a burst of flame from Baikonur, Kazakhstan,
launching the world's third space tourist, US millionaire scientist
Gregory Olsen, and a U.S.-Russian crew on a two-day trip to the
international space station.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, In Yekaterinburg,
Russia, 5 teenagers, ranging in age from 12 to 17, were drunk when they
encountered a 21-year-old Jewish man and attacked him. After the man
fell to the ground, the group took a metal cross from a grave headstone
and stabbed him. A Russian court in 2007 sentenced the 5 teenagers to
prison terms of 5-10 years.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2005 Oct 2, Project leader Exxon
Mobil corporation said Russia's massive Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field
started pumping oil off the country's Pacific coast at the weekend.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 3, In Russia Orthodox
priests chanted prayers and believers lighted candles as Patriarch
Alexy II led reburial rites for Gen. Anton Denikin, who fought against
the Red Army during Russia's civil war and is now cast as a patriot.
Denikin, who died in exile in the United States in 1947, was laid to
rest together with Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin and the wives of the
two men in the historic Donskoy Monastery in central Moscow.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, Switzerland decided to
extradite Russia's former nuclear minister to the US on charges of
stealing up to $9 million that was intended to improve security of
nuclear plants. Russia has been fighting the US extradition request for
Yevgeny Adamov out of fear that he could reveal nuclear secrets while
facing the charges in the United States.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, In London Russia’s
Pres. Putin met with EU leaders for talks on expanding cooperation in
the fight against crime, including terrorism, and strengthening trade
ties.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 7, Russia test-launched a
collapsible mini-spacecraft, which is designed to carry cargo and even
passengers from the international space station to Earth.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 8, Russia's military
conducted a successful ballistic missile test from a nuclear submarine
in the Barents Sea, hitting a target on the eastern peninsula of
Kamchatka.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8-2005 Nov 6, In Russia
33 people died in the Siberian region of Magadan after drinking
homemade alcohol containing industrial methanol.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, Interfax news reported
that Russia will supply Afghanistan's fledgling army with helicopters
and equipment worth $30 million, more than 15 years after Moscow
withdrew after a nearly decade-long war.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 11, US millionaire
scientist Gregory Olsen and a two-man, Russian-American crew returned
from the international space station to Earth in a swift, bone-jarring
descent in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 12, An explosion hit a
distillery in Russia's Ingushetia region and there were casualties. A
police spokesman called the blast a terrorist act.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 13, In Russia scores of
Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and
government buildings in Nalchik, capital of the republic of
Kabardino-Balkariya, sparking battles that killed 139 people, including
94 militants. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks.
President Putin ordered a total blockade of Nalchik, a city of 235,000,
to prevent militants from slipping out, and he said armed resisters
would be shot.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.A11)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.25)(AP,
10/13/06)
2005 Oct 14, In Nalchik Russian
security forces in an armored personnel carrier smashed through the
wall of a store to rescue two hostages held by suspected Islamic
militants as authorities tried to clear out the last pockets of rebel
resistance after more than a day of fighting that killed 139 people
including 92 militants.
(AP, 10/14/05)(WSJ, 10/17/05, p.A1)(Econ, 7/15/06,
p.25)
2005 Oct 16, Alexander Slesarev, a
Russian businessman believed to be the true owner of Sodbiznesbank, was
shot to death outside Moscow along with his wife and young daughter.
(http://english.pravda.ru/topic/Kozlov-264/)(WSJ,
9/22/06, p.A6)
2005 Oct 17, Russian state
security agents arrested a senior tax official as he was handed a $1
million bribe in a plush Moscow hotel. The arrest was announced the
next day as corruption watchdog Transparency International published
its annual survey showing graft in Russia had worsened to put it on the
same level as Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/18/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.53)
2005 Oct 18, In Nalchik, Russia, a
suspect in last week's attacks here by alleged Islamic extremists was
reported killed in a clash with police.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Alexander Yakovlev
(81), a key architect of former President Mikhail Gorbachev's political
reforms of perestroika and glasnost that shook the last years of the
Soviet Union, died.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 19, Russia's Agriculture
Ministry confirmed that the Asian H5N1 strain had been detected in the
village of Yandovka, suggesting the dreaded virus might be spreading
across a swath from Siberia to the shores of the Mediterranean.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 26, Russia’s Finance
Minister Alexei Kudrin warned that a strengthening ruble and high
inflation threatened to undermine the competitiveness of Russia's
economy as the nation seeks to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, A Swiss court found
Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect, guilty of premeditated homicide
for the Feb 2004 killing of the air traffic controller on duty at the
time of the Jul 1, 2002, midair plane collision in which his wife and
child were lost.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 31, President Vladimir
Putin said he won't seek a third term in 2008, but vowed not to allow
"destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the door open
for drastic action in the event of a crisis.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A new survey reported
that more than half of Russians think everyone in power is dishonest,
from the president and parliament, to government and the courts.
Transparency International recently ranked Russia joint 126th on its
list of cleanest countries, on a par with Sierra Leone, Niger and
Albania.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Nov 10, Russia captured the
world chess team championship with a last-minute, come-from-behind
victory over the surprised Chinese team.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Russia a senior
prosecutor said Rasul Kudayev, who was held at the US military prison
at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has been detained on suspicion of
involvement in the Oct 13 attacks on police in southern Russia. He was
said to have been involved in preparing and carrying out attacks on
government and law enforcement offices in Nalchik.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 14, Russia and Uzbekistan
signed a far-reaching treaty opening the way for a Russian military
deployment in the Central Asian nation that evicted U.S. forces and
bristled at Western criticism of the brutal suppression of a May
uprising.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, In Russia an
explosion ripped through a police dormitory in St. Petersburg, killing
a retired police officer.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 16, In Chechnya a group
of Russian soldiers, alleged to be drunk, began flagging down cars and
demanding money in the Grozny suburb of Staraya Sunzha. 3 civilians
were killed and 3 servicemen were detained.
(SSFC, 11/20/05, p.A22)
2005 Nov 17, Sergei Abramov, the
prime minister of Chechnya was in a serious condition after a car crash
on the way to a Moscow airport. His aide said it was too early to rule
out an assassination attempt.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, A Russian UN official
accused of money laundering was released on $500,000 bail posted by his
government. Vladimir Kuznetsov (48), who chaired the powerful UN budget
oversight committee, had been jailed since Sept. 1 on charges that he
conspired with a UN procurement officer to launder hundreds of
thousands of dollars from foreign companies seeking contracts with the
world body.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 20, Russian President
Vladimir Putin started a three-day visit to Japan but it appears
unlikely there will be any progress in settling a 60-year territorial
dispute that has prevented the two nations from formally ending World
War II hostilities.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 21, The leaders of Russia
and Japan said the settlement of a 60-year-old dispute that kept their
nations from formally ending their World War II hostilities requires
closer economic cooperation and patient trust-building as Tokyo backed
Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, Moscow police
launched operation “Counterfeit,” a citywide sting operations aimed at
shutting down producers and sellers of counterfeit music, movies and
software, in the latest clampdown on rampant piracy that threatens
Russia's bid to join the WTO.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Russia’s Pres. Putin
vowed to make sure a controversial bill tightening state control over
the nonprofit sector doesn’t harm civil society.
(WSJ, 11/25/05, p.A9)
2005 Nov 28, A top pro-Kremlin
party led in early returns from Chechnya's first parliamentary election
since federal troops reinvaded more than six years ago, and President
Vladimir Putin hailed the vote as a key to restoring law and order.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 29, A panel in North
Ossetia investigating last year's bloody school hostage siege in the
southern Russian town of Beslan blamed the authorities for botching the
rescue efforts and urged them to punish the culprits.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov, Bill Browder, manager
of a large Russian investment fund, was turned back from Russia when he
landed in Moscow as a threat to national security.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.70)
2005 Dec 1, Russian press said the
Far East city of Khabarovsk, in the path of a toxic spill from a
Chinese plant explosion, has enough drinking water reserves to last
more than 10 days.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 2, Russian media reported
that Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical
surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, It was reported that a
money-laundering scandal that started in Germany has spread to other
countries and implicated Leonid Reiman, Russia’s telecommunications
minister and close Putin ally. Prosecutors suspected that Mr. Reiman
had set up a network of shell companies and trusts to conceal over $1
billion in assets.
(WSJ, 12/2/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/19/06, p.A8)
2005 Dec 4, In Russia, the
snow-covered roof of an indoor swimming pool collapsed onto parents and
children in Chusovoi, a Ural Mountains town, killing 14 people,
including 10 children.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Russia an
explosion, apparently caused by a natural gas leak, killed one person
and injured at least five others at a Moscow apartment building.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 9, President Vladimir
Putin signaled he would scrap some of the harshest provisions of a
much-criticized bill that would severely restrict the work of
foreign-funded non-governmental organizations in Russia.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 9, Russia's parliament
gave final approval to legislation allowing direct foreign ownership of
shares in Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 10, In Russia a 24-hour,
English-language, state-funded television channel went live from its
Moscow studios, designed to broadcast news from a Russian perspective
around the globe.
(AP, 12/10/05)
2005 Dec 15, European and US
officials said the EU has formally protested to Russia about its sale
of sophisticated missiles to Iran, saying the diplomatic row reflected
disarray on how to pressure Tehran to scale back its suspect nuclear
program.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 21, In Russia's Far East
authorities in Khabarovsk cut off water to its 10,000 people as a toxic
slick from a chemical plant explosion in China floated downriver.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 22, A toxic spill from
China reached Khabarovsk, and the region's governor appealed for calm
in the Far Eastern Russian city, where residents have crammed their
apartments with bottles, pails, pans and even bathtubs full of fresh
water.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 23, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship arrived at the international space station bearing supplies,
chocolates and gifts from the families of the American and Russian
crewmen.
(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 Dec 24, Russia's Foreign
Ministry made a formal offer to Iran to move its uranium enrichment
program to Russia, raising diplomatic pressure on Tehran to accept the
Western-backed plan it has so far rejected.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 24, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, a Cameroonian student was stabbed to death and another African
student was seriously wounded in separate attacks Russian prosecutors
called likely hate crimes. More than 15 people in Russia were killed in
apparently racially motivated attacks this year. Last year saw 44 such
slayings, according to the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights. The group
estimates that Russia is home to some 50,000 skinheads and numerous
neo-Nazi organizations.
(AP, 12/26/05)
2005 Dec 27, Official Syrian news
reported that Syria has signed a $2.7 billion memorandum of
understanding with a Russian company for construction of a refinery and
petrochemical plant in northeast Syria.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Andrei Illarionov, an
outspoken economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin,
announced that he was resigning, saying he could no longer work in a
government that had done away with political freedoms.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 28, Russia’s parliament
concluded the local officials contributed to the Sep 3, 2004, death
toll in Beslan in contradiction to a prosecutor’s report the previous
day.
(WSJ, 12/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 29, Top Iranian and
Russian officials agreed to hold talks on a Russian proposal aimed a
resolving Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec 29, Russia bought up gas
supplies from Turkmenistan to prevent Ukraine from getting them. Russia
was demanding a quadruple increase in gas prices.
(WSJ, 12/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 29, A fire broke out in a
home for the mentally ill outside Moscow, killing seven people and
injuring 12.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec 29, Switzerland's top
court ordered the extradition of Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's former
nuclear minister, to his homeland instead of the US, where he's been
indicted for allegedly diverting $9 million in US aid money to his
businesses. The Swiss court made its ruling Dec. 22 but it was made
public Dec 29.
(AP, 12/30/05)
2005 Dec 31, President Vladimir
Putin ordered Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly to supply
Ukraine with natural gas at the current price for three months, if the
government in Kiev immediately agreed to a big price hike to take
effect later.
(AP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 31, Moscow jailed Yevgeny
Adamov, Russia's former nuclear minister, on fraud charges after a
Swiss court decided to extradite him to Russia instead of the US.
(WSJ, 1/3/06, p.A1)
2005 Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
authored “Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of
Revolution.”
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.D8)
2005 Alcohol poisoning killed some
36,000 Russians this year.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.51)
2005 Bilateral trade between
Russia and Turkey reached $15 billion, making Russia Turkey’s
second-largest trade partner.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.48)
2006 Jan 1, Russia took over the
annual presidency of the G8 club of industrialized democracies for the
first time from Britain on New Year's Day.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 1, Russia's natural gas
monopoly halted sales to Ukraine in a price dispute and began reducing
pressure in transmission lines that also carry substantial supplies to
western Europe. Supplies of natural gas to Poland have been hit by cuts
imposed by Russia on the amount of gas entering the pipeline system in
neighbouring Ukraine.
(Reuters, 1/1/06)(AFP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 2, Russia's
state-controlled natural gas monopoly accused Ukraine of diverting
about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other customers, a
day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute whose
effects were spreading across Europe.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 2, A heavily-criticized
Russia promised to restore full gas supplies to Europe after Germany
warned that its dispute with Ukraine over deliveries could hurt its
long-term credibility as an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 3, Russian and Ukrainian
officials agreed to resume talks on resolving a dispute over the price
of natural gas that has reverberated across the continent and left
Ukraine cut off from its supplies.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 4, The Russian and
Ukrainian natural gas companies agreed on a plan to resume gas
shipments to Ukraine that allowed both sides to claim victory after a
commercial and political dispute that had raised fears of gas shortages
in Europe.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 11, In Russia a
knife-wielding man (20) shouting "I will kill Jews!" attacked a
synagogue in downtown Moscow, slashing and stabbing at 9 people before
the son of a rabbi wrestled him to the ground. In September Alexander
Koptsev was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
(AP, 1/11/06)(Econ, 5/13/06, p.59)(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Jan 13, In southern Russia a
bus transporting workers after their shift at a local factory collided
with a train, killing at least 21 people and severely injuring five.
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Jan 16, Deputy PM Alexander
Zhukov said more money entered Russia than left it last year for the
first time in the country's post-Soviet history.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 17, Russia's foreign
minister indicated that Moscow was not ready to support moves by the
U.S. and its European allies to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council
over its nuclear program, while the West stepped up pressure on Tehran.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 17, In Russia 2 people
died of exposure and 14 more were hospitalized in a single day as
temperatures plunged in Moscow dropping from about freezing to minus-28
Celsius (minus-18 Fahrenheit) overnight.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 18, Interfax news
reported that Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has reduced supplies
to European customers because of a cold snap at home.
(AP, 1/18/06)
2006 Jan 19, Another seven people
died overnight in Moscow and concerns over energy supplies in Russia
and Europe grew as record bone-chilling cold forced cutbacks.
(AFP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 20, The head of Russia's
atomic energy agency said that Iran is ready for detailed discussions
on the proposal to conduct Iran's uranium enrichment in Russia.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 20, Russia's coldest
winter in a generation killed 7 more people overnight lifting the
reported death toll to 123 putting huge pressure on the Soviet-era
heating and power network.
(Reuters, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 22, Explosions hit
pipelines running through southern Russia, cutting the natural gas
supply to Georgia and Armenia during a cold snap.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 23, Russia's main
intelligence agency said it had uncovered spying by four British
diplomats, using electronic equipment inside a fake rock, and accused
them of channeling funds to non-governmental organizations, including
one of the country's most well-known human rights watchdogs.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 25, Iran's top nuclear
negotiator said that Tehran views Moscow's offer to have Iran's uranium
enriched in Russia as a positive development but no agreement has been
reached between the countries.
(AP, 1/25/06)
2006 Jan 26, Russian military
prosecutors and top officers pledged a thorough inquiry into one of the
most brutal hazing incidents in the Russian military in years. Doctors
said the legs and genitals of Pvt. Andrei Sychev (18) were
amputated after a New Year's Eve incident at the Chelyabinsk Tank
Academy. On Sep 26 a Chelyabinsk military court found Junior Sergeant
Alexander Sivyakov guilty of abuse of power that led to severe bodily
harm, and sentenced him to four years in prison.
(AP, 1/26/06)(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Jan 29, Russia resumed
sending natural gas to Georgia after finishing repairs to a major
pipeline damaged by mysterious blasts a week earlier.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 31, George Koval (1913),
American-born Soviet spy, died in Moscow. In 1932 his family moved from
Iowa to Birobidzhan, a Siberian city that Stalin promoted as a secular
Jewish homeland. From 1940 to 1948 Koval, groomed as a Russian spy, was
able to infiltrate the Manhattan Project. He fled the US after the war.
In 2007 Pres. Putin posthumously awarded him Russia’s highest award.
(SFC, 11/12/07, p.A12)
2006 Jan, Vodka producers in
Russia began shutting down due to the lack of new government tax
stickers.
(WSJ, 2/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 2, Russia and Ukraine
announced the signing of an agreement finalizing their Jan 4 compromise
on natural gas prices.
(WSJ, 2/3/06, p.A10)
2006 Feb 2, In Russia 3 bombs
ripped through slot-machine parlors in the southern city of
Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, killing at least two people
and injuring up to 25 others.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 3, In Russia Stanislav
Dmitriyevsky, the head of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society in
Nizhny Novgorod, was convicted of inciting ethnic hatred, a verdict he
condemned as part of a state assault on non-governmental organizations.
Dmitriyevsky had campaigned against rights abuses in Chechnya.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 7, It was reported that
Russia’s Yukos oil company, which says it owes $6.3 billion in back tax
claims, has sold a 49 percent stake in Slovak pipeline operator
Transpetrol for $105 million, to Russia’s Russneft oil company.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 9, Russian President
Vladimir Putin invited leaders of Hamas to Moscow, saying his country
does not see the Palestinian group as a terrorist organization.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 10, In southern Russia 2
days of fighting in a town in the Stavropol region, 25 miles north of
Chechnya, left 12 suspected rebels and seven policemen dead.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, In Moscow G-8 finance
ministers called for stepped up efforts to ensure a stable worldwide
energy supply.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.A23)
2006 Feb 13, In North Ossetia 6
women whose relatives were victims of the 2004 Beslan school hostage
seizure were on hunger strike for a fifth day, protesting what they say
are efforts by authorities to prematurely end the trial of the only
alleged remaining attacker.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 14, A senior Russian
official said Russia will not pay more to base its Black Sea Fleet in a
Ukrainian port, rebuffing Ukrainian demands and setting the stage for
the latest dispute between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 15, Russia's foreign
minister said that Iran must eliminate international concerns it could
use its nuclear program to make weapons before Moscow will support
Tehran's right to domestically enrich uranium.
(AP, 2/15/06)
2006 Feb 16, Russia's Evgeni
Plushenko beat world champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland by an
unfathomable 27.12 points to win the gold medal in men's figure skating
at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2006 Feb 17, Russian prosecutors
opened an investigation into the editor of a newspaper that reprinted
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and another paper was ordered
closed after publishing a cartoon depicting Muhammad along with Jesus,
Moses and Buddha.
(AP, 2/17/06)
2006 Feb 20, Russian and Iranian
negotiators concluded a day of talks on Moscow's offer to enrich
uranium for Iran and agreed to continue.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 20, At the Turin
Olympics, Tanith Belbin and partner Ben Agosto snapped the US medals
drought in figure skating with a silver; Russians Tatiana Navka and
Roman Kostomarov won the gold.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2006 Feb 21, The weekly Nash
Region became the second Russian newspaper in a week to shut down amid
heightened sensitivities about portrayals of Muhammad.
(AP, 2/21/06)
2006 Feb 23, In Russia the
concave, snow-covered roof of Moscow’s Basmanny market collapsed,
killing at least 66 people.
(WSJ, 2/24/06, p.A1)(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 26, Iran's nuclear chief
said an agreement was reached with Moscow to set up a joint uranium
enrichment facility on Russian soil, a deal that could assuage global
concerns that Tehran wants to build atomic bombs.
(AP, 2/26/06)
2006 Mar 1, Russia reported that
some 495,000 birds had died from H5N1 bird flu in regions near the
Caspian and Black seas since Feb 3.
(SFC, 3/2/06, p.A6)
2006 Mar 3, Khaled Mashaal, Hamas'
political leader, rejected any discussion about the militant group's
refusal to recognize Israel, dealing a setback to Moscow's efforts to
persuade it to soften its stance.
(AP, 3/3/06)
2006 Mar 6, President Vladimir
Putin signed a measure into law that allows the Russian military to
shoot down hijacked planes, the latest in a series of bills passed
following terrorist attacks.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 6, Russia's environmental
agency gave final approval to a much-criticized plan to build a
2,550-mile oil pipeline past Lake Baikal, the world's largest
freshwater lake.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 7, A four-year-old
Indonesian boy became the latest suspected human casualty of bird flu
as the virus spread in Nigeria and Poland. A Russian virus expert
warned that a human pandemic was highly likely and told the government
to get ready.
(AFP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 9, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said new customs rules imposed by Ukraine to
tighten its border with Moldova's breakaway region violate a 1997
agreement and are an attempt to pressure the separatist
Russian-speaking enclave.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 10, In Russia a bomb
exploded outside a government office in the southern city of
Makhachkala, killing a top-ranking police official.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 11, Algeria signed a $7.5
billion deal with visiting Pres. Putin for Russian fighter aircraft,
tanks and anti-aircraft misiles.
(Econ, 2/10/07,
p.45)(http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2006/item3/item2/)
2006 Mar 14, China and Russia
objected to a tough UN Security Council statement backed by the United
States, Britain and France calling for a report in two weeks on Iran's
compliance with demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
(AP, 3/14/06)
2006 Mar 16, G-8 energy ministers
meeting in Moscow called for market-oriented approaches to increasing
supplies and said significant investments would be needed in the
production, transportation and processing of resources.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 17, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh thanked Russia for its decision to supply uranium to two
fuel-starved Indian nuclear reactors, during a visit to New Delhi by
Russian Premier Mikhail Fradkov.
(AFP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 21, Chinese President Hu
Jintao and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on to
deepen energy cooperation, as Russian gas giant Gazprom said it would
look to meet some needs of oil and gas-hungry China.
(Reuters, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 24, It was reported that
Iraqi documents captured by US forces in 2003 say Russian intelligence
had sources inside the American military that enabled it to feed
information about U.S. troop movements and battle plans to Saddam
Hussein. Russia quickly denied that it provided information on US
troops movements and plans to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Russian-American
crew and Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s 1st astronaut, lifted off in a Soyuz
TMA-8 spacecraft to dock with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 30, Russia's natural-gas
monopoly OAO Gazprom said that Belarus must pay European rates for its
gas, an apparent bargaining ploy to win control over its neighbor's gas
pipeline system and one that could stir trouble between the allies.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Apr 1, A Soyuz capsule docked
with the international space station (ISS), bringing Brazil's first
astronaut, a new Russian-American crew and a fresh load of supplies,
equipment and experiments.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, Karl Bushby was
briefly detained after walking from Alaska across the icy Bering
Straits into Russian territory, a treacherous crossing for which he was
joined by Dmitri Kieffer, a French-born US citizen who videotaped the
adventure. Authorities confiscated the two men's passports and other
belongings, effectively making it impossible for them to move. Bushby
was on a quest to trek around the world. Bushby set out on foot from
southern Chile on November 1, 1998 with the intention of walking back
to his home in the northern English city of Hull, a 36,000-mile
(58,000-kilometer) odyssey that he was scheduled to complete by 2010.
On April 14 a Russian court ordered the deportation of the British
adventurer for illegally crossing into Russia, dealing a potentially
fatal blow to his dream of walking around the world.
(AFP, 4/6/06)(AFP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 6, Russian prosecutors
said Vasily Aleksanian, an executive recently assigned to saving Yukos,
Russia's former biggest oil producer, from bankruptcy was arrested on
charges of embezzlement and money-laundering.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, It was reported that
Russian health and sanitary officials had imposed a ban on Georgian and
Moldovan wines effective May 1. Authorities said the wines contained
pesticides and heavy metals. The ban was soon extended to brandy and
sparkling wines.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 8, Thousands of Russians
left behind by their country's economic boom came out onto the streets
to protest at what they said was the widening gulf between rich and
poor.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 9, A capsule carrying a
Russian, American and Brazilian landed in Kazakhstan following a
weeklong trip to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 13, In Russia a group of
young men beat inhabitants with metal bars, killing a man and a woman
and leaving an 80-year-old woman and a 14-year-old girl gravely
wounded. 9 people were later arrested in connection with the attack on
the Roma camp in the southern Volgograd region.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 14, A bankruptcy
supervisor at the shattered Yukos oil company said that he had won a
temporary injunction from a New York court banning the company from
selling its assets as it goes into bankruptcy hearings.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Russia's OAO GAZ
automaker agreed to buy DaimlerChrysler AG production lines in suburban
Detroit and move them to Russia, where it will produce DaimlerChrysler
cars under license.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Jailed Russian tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was hospitalized after another prisoner slashed
him in the face while he slept.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, In southern Chechnya
rebels killed two Russian soldiers and wounded five others in an ambush.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 21, Russia began
delivering advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Belarus.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Iran's envoy to the
UN nuclear watchdog agency said the Islamic republic had reached a
"basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment
venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 25, Russia launched a
satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on
Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 26, President Vladimir
Putin ordered a giant new oil pipeline to be routed away from Lake
Baikal, the world's deepest lake and home to hundreds of unique species.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 27, Russia’s Agriculture
Ministry said it has banned all imports of poultry and poultry products
in connection with violations of veterinary regulations. Moscow claimed
to have found diseased chickens and insufficient veterinary monitoring
on US poultry farms, but there were also Russia media reports linking
the ban to the country's unhappiness over US President George W. Bush's
decision to impose hefty tariffs on foreign steel imports.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 29, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki
to suspend enriching uranium and ensure full-scale cooperation with the
UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 May 5, In Moscow a jury voted
to acquit Kazbek Dukuzov (32) and Musa Vakhayev (42), the two men in
the July 2004 death of Paul Klebnikov, a 41-year-old New Yorker of
Russian descent and editor of the Forbes Russian edition. The Moscow
City Court official handed down the verdict the next day. Prosecutors
said they would appeal the acquittal.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, A court in Russia's
Far East overturned a deportation ruling for US and British adventurers
accused of illegally crossing the border by walking across the frozen
Bering Straight from Alaska.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 9, Cuba, Saudi Arabia,
China and Russia won seats on the new UN Human Rights Council despite
their poor human rights records. Two rights abusers, Iran and
Venezuela, were defeated.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, President Vladimir
Putin called population declines of hundreds of thousands a year one of
Russia's most serious problems and urged parliament to offer financial
incentives for families to have more children. He used his
state-of-the-nation speech to call for a big increase in military
spending to protect Russian interests world-wide. He dismissed US
criticism that the Kremlin is curtailing democratic freedoms.
(AP, 5/10/06)(WSJ, 5/11/06, p.A1)
2006 May 10, Georgy Korniyenko
(81), Soviet diplomat, died. He served at the Soviet Embassy in
Washington during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and later was a deputy
foreign minister.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Alexander Zinoviev
(83), prominent Russian author, died in Moscow. Zinoviev's "The Yawning
Heights" (1976), a satirical description of Soviet society, was
published in Switzerland. It led to his ouster from his job at the
Academy of Sciences and his dismissal from the Communist Party. He was
forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union in 1978 for his satire aimed
at the Communist regime. He had returned to Russia in 1999.
(AP, 5/11/06)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.89)
2006 May 12, Russia's finance
minister said that remaining restrictions on currency movement would be
removed as of July 1, as Russia seeks to make the ruble fully
convertible against a backdrop of oil-driven economic stability.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Local media said
Russian authorities had fired a string of high-ranking security and law
enforcement officials in a shake up described as part of a Kremlin push
to fight graft and cement control of key government agencies.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 17, In southern Russia
Ingushetia's Deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoyev, two of his
bodyguards and four civilians were killed when a sedan packed with
explosives blocked a road on the outskirts of the region's main city of
Nazran and blew up. A rebel ambush killed 5 Russian soldiers.
(AP, 5/17/06)(WSJ, 5/18/06, p.A1)
2006 May 19, Officials said Russia
stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in international AIDS
funding because the World Bank has reclassified it as an upper
middle-income country.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 24, Russian prosecutors
said St. Petersburg police have detained eight members of an extremist
group suspected in racist murders, including the shooting of a
Senegalese student outside a nightclub.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, President Hugo Chavez
said that Venezuela will buy Russian jets because of a dispute over
parts for US-made aircraft, launching yet another verbal assault on
Pres. Bush.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, Russian President
Vladmir Putin and EU leaders met for a summit focused on EU concerns
about Russia's reliability as a key energy supplier.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 26, In Russia the only
known militant to survive the Beslan school siege was convicted in the
deaths of 331 people, many of them children, and sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Yukos sold its 53.7%
stake in Mazeikiai to the Polish PKN Orlen oil refining company for
US$1.49 billion. Orlen signed the agreement in Amsterdam with the Yukos
company’s Netherlands-registered subsidiary, Yukos International, which
had all along held the legal title to that stake. The Lithuanian
government had exercised its right to authorize this sale-and-purchase
three days earlier.
(http://cms2000.isn.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=16079)
2006 May 26, A Moscow court upheld
a ban by city authorities on what would have been the Russian capital's
first gay and lesbian pride parade. Organizers said they were
considering flouting the prohibition. Russian police, militant Orthodox
Christians and neo-fascists broke up a first ever gay rights march in
Moscow, but the homosexuals claimed their short-lived protest as a
"great victory."
(AP, 5/27/06)(Reuters, 5/27/06)
2006 Jun 2, Russian President
Vladimir Putin removed his hawkish chief prosecutor in what analysts
said was a tactical victory for moderates over hardliners in a Kremlin
power struggle.
(Reuters, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 5, Levon Chakhmakhchyan,
a regional lawmaker from Kalmykia, faced expulsion from Russia's upper
house of parliament after federal security agents allegedly caught him
accepting $300,000 in extorted money in a sting operation.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 9, In Russia finance
ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) nations gathered for talks in
St. Petersburg. Russia offered to write off $700 million in poor-nation
debt.
(Reuters, 6/9/06)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 9, In Russia gunmen shot
and killed a police commander, his three young children, driver and
bodyguard in the troubled southern province of Ingushetia.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 10, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, finance ministers from the world's most industrialized nations
(G8) said that global growth remains strong, but pointed at dangers
from high energy prices and widening economic imbalances. US Treasury
Secretary John Snow said the US and Russia had made progress in talks
on Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the two
nations could reach a deal before next month's G-8 summit.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 15, The Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, a Russian and Chinese-led bloc of Asian
states, said it plans to set up an expert group to boost computer
security and help guard against threats to their regimes from the
Internet. SCO members (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are mostly authoritarian states that
maintain tight controls on communications technology, including the
Internet.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 16, In Moscow the world’s
richest countries vowed to cooperate more closely on fighting terrorism
with a particular focus on terrorist recruitment, cyber crime and the
flow of dangerous people and cargo across borders. The commitment came
at the end of a two-day meeting of G8 law enforcement and justice
officials as part of Russia's G-8 presidency.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, A Russian state vodka
company won Stolichnaya brand rights back from a Dutch firm.
(WSJ, 6/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 17, In Chechnya Russian
police killed rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev in a special police
operation in his hometown of Argun. An intelligence agent and a police
officer were killed in the operation. One rebel also was killed and two
rebels escaped.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 26, A new survey said
Moscow has eclipsed Tokyo as the world's most expensive city. The
Russian capital moved up 3 spots from a year ago thanks to a recent
property boom. South Korea's Seoul ranked second on the list, up from
fifth last year.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jun 28, The Kremlin press
service said President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia's special
services to hunt down and "destroy" the killers of four Russian
diplomats in Iraq.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 28, Russian prosecutors
asked media officials to close three popular teenage magazines, arguing
the publications propagate sexual activity.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 29, The new UN Human
Rights Council overrode Canadian and Russian objections and passed a
declaration to protect the rights of indigenous peoples around the
world. The declaration asserted that indigenous peoples may have a
right to restitution of land and resources taken from them. The Council
also unanimously approved an international treaty that would ban states
from abducting perceived enemies and hiding them in secret prisons or
killing them.
(AP, 6/29/06)(Reuters, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun 30, Russia offered a $10
million reward for information on the killers of five Russian Embassy
staff workers in Iraq.
(AP, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun, Russian police arrested
Alexander Pichushkin (32) for murder. He was accused of killing dozens
of people in a Moscow park over several years and marking his slayings
on a chessboard, with the goal of filling all 64 squares.
(AP, 8/13/07)
2006 Jul 1, A new law, combined
with a series of bureaucratic bungles, forced some 30% of Russian
liquor stores to close indefinitely because they will have nothing to
sell. The law, which aimed to block counterfeit wine sales, requires
distributors to place new, government-issued excise labels on all wine
and liquor. But a series of delays and misunderstandings has meant few
properly labeled imports will be ready in time.
(AP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jul 4, Gunmen attacked a
Russian military convoy in the Chechnya region, killing at least five
troops and wounding as many as 25 others, officials said. Pro-rebel Web
sites claimed more than 20 Russian soldiers were killed.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2006 Jul 7, Officials said Russian
authorities have dramatically curtailed the number of stations
broadcasting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America news
programs, sending an unsettling signal about the state of press
freedoms in Russia.
(AP, 7/8/06)
2006 Jul 9, A Russian Airbus 310
passenger plane skidded off a rain-slicked Siberian runway and plowed
through a concrete barrier, bursting into flames. At least 125 of 203
people on board were killed.
(AP, 7/9/06)(AP, 7/9/07)
2006 Jul 10, Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev (41) was killed in Ingushetia. He had claimed
responsibility for modern Russia's worst terrorist attacks including
Beslan in 2004. He was killed along with 4 other militant while
accompanying a truck filled with 220 pounds of dynamite that blew up in
the Ingush village of Ekazhevo. Shortly before his death he was
appointed vice-president of Ichkeria, the rebel’s name for their
non-existent state.
(AP, 7/10/06)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.84)
2006 Jul 12, President Vladimir
Putin signed into law a bill cutting the length of military service in
Russia, but also canceling many deferments from the draft. The
legislation reduced the current two-year conscription term to 1½
years beginning next year, then to one year in 2008.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 12, An experimental
spacecraft bankrolled by real estate magnate Robert Bigelow
successfully inflated in orbit, testing a technology that could be used
to fulfill his dream of building a commercial space station. Genesis I
flew aboard a converted Cold War ballistic missile from Russia's
southern Ural Mountains at 6:53 p.m. Moscow time.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 14, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, authorities detained more than 200 anti-globalization activists
hoping to protest the G-8 summit, as protest organizers vowed to hold a
march despite a ban on demonstrations.
(AP, 7/14/06)
2006 Jul 15, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, world leaders tore up a carefully prepared G8 summit agenda and
turned their attention to a growing crisis in the Middle East, hoping
to reach common ground on ways to stop the fighting. About 150
protesters faced off with police as they tried to exercise their right
of assembly.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, In a chilly prelude
to a Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, President Bush
blocked Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Russia and
the US failed to strike a bilateral deal allowing Russia to join the
WTO but agreed to set a deadline to wrap up talks within three months.
(AP, 7/15/07)(Reuters, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 16, President Bush and
other Group of Eight world leaders meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia,
urged Israel to show "utmost restraint" and blamed Hezbollah and Hamas
for escalating violence in the Middle East. G8 leaders adopted
statements on the summit's three priority areas of energy security,
education and the fight against infectious diseases.
(AP, 7/16/06)(AP, 7/16/07)
2006 Jul 17, The presidents of
Russia and Kazakhstan agreed at the G8 summit to create a joint venture
to process natural gas from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak gas field.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 17, In Moscow full
trading began in the shares of Rosneft Oil Co. The company raised $10.4
billion with shares at $7.55. The next day a London court dismissed a
blocking plea by Yukos and full trading began in London.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.71)
2006 Jul 19, Doku Umarov, the
leader of the Chechen rebels, dismissed a Russian amnesty offer, saying
attacks outside his home region would be his rebels' answer to Moscow.
(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 27, The European Court of
Human Rights found Russia guilty of violating the "right to life" of a
young Chechen who disappeared after a Russian general ordered him shot.
Khadzimurat Yandiyev (25) was last seen in the hands of Russian troops
in February 2000.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 27, The head of Russia's
state arms-trading agency said that Russia has signed contracts with
Venezuela for 24 military planes and 53 helicopters.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 27, A Russian rocket that
was to put 18 satellites in orbit crashed shortly after liftoff. The
Dnepr rocket crashed about 15 miles south of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. The rocket was carrying a Russian satellite and 17 from
other countries, including the United States and Italy.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 28, In Russia Pres. Putin
signed a law making slander of a public official a crime.
(WSJ, 7/29/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 29, An oil spill occurred
in Russia’s western Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine and
Belarus. It affected a 4-square-mile area and contaminated water
sources. 2 days later Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry said
that the oil pipeline leak threatened environmental damage, but the
pipeline’s operator said the spill only affected a 4,000-square-foot
area and that the consequences had been dealt with over the weekend.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 31, Russian officials
said more than 220 pieces, including jewelry and enameled objects worth
about $5 million, stolen from the State Hermitage Museum in St.
Petersburg, were not insured. The theft was discovered after a routine
inventory check that began in October 2005 and was completed at the end
of July.
(AP, 8/1/06)(SFC, 8/1/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul, China National
Petroleum, the parent of PetroChina, took a $500 million stake in
Rosneft, the Russian oil group.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.66)
2006 Aug 1, A Moscow judge
declared the Yukos oil company bankrupt, paving the way for the
liquidation of what was once Russia's biggest oil producer.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 5, Interfax news said
Russian police have detained the husband of a museum curator and a 2nd
person suspected of stealing hundreds of artworks from St. Petersburg’s
Hermitage Museum.
(Reuters, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 5, Russia's
state-controlled arms trader and top aircraft maker criticized
Washington for imposing sanctions on them over dealings with Iran. The
defense ministry said the move reflected US annoyance at arms sales to
Venezuela. A Russian rocket carrying US telecommunications equipment
blasted off, 10 days after another rocket carrying 18 satellites
crashed after launch.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 8, Russian officials said
drawings by the late architect Yakov Chernikhov (d.1951), worth
millions of dollars, had disappeared from the Russian State Archive of
Literature and Art. Chernikhov was widely admired for his avant-garde
and constructivist designs. Rosokhrankultura said it became aware of
the Chernikhov thefts after nine missing drawings were sold at auction
by auction house Christie's on June 22.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 8, A car bomb killed a
prosecutor in Dagestan, Russia, and two police were shot dead as they
arrived on the scene.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 9, Sergei Skripal (55), a
retired Russian colonel, was sentenced by a military court in Moscow to
13 years imprisonment for passing along state secrets to Britain.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 16, A Russian patrol boat
opened fire on a Japanese vessel in disputed waters, killing a
fisherman and prompting a strong protest from Tokyo. Moscow urged
Japanese boats to stay out of its waters. 3 fishermen were detained.
(AP, 8/16/06)(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 19, Russia handed over
the body of a Japanese fisherman killed by a Russian patrol boat that
opened fire in disputed waters, sparking a diplomatic feud.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 21, In Russia a bomb
blast tore through a Moscow market, killing at least 11 people and over
50 people. 3 detainees, all in their late teens or early 20s, confessed
to the crime.
(AP, 8/21/06)(AP, 8/22/07)
2006 Aug 22, A Russian passenger
jet with at least 170 people aboard crashed in Ukraine after sending a
distress signal. The Pulkovo airlines Tupolev 154, en route from the
Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg, crashed near the
Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2006 Aug 22, In Spain Grigory
Perelman (40), a reclusive Russian, won a Fields Medal, the math
world's highest honor, for solving the 1904 Poincare Conjecture, a
problem that has stumped some of the discipline's greatest minds for a
century, but he refused the award.
(AP, 8/22/06)(WSJ, 2/24/07, p.P10)
2006 Aug 23, Russia’s Gazprom
threatened to cut off gas exports to Bosnia on Oct 1 if strides toward
repaying $104.8 million in debts, incurred during wars that ended in
1995, were not met.
(WSJ, 8/24/06, p.A6)
2006 Aug 26, In Russia's Dagestan
region police surrounded a home and exchanged gunfire with suspected
militants, killing four and wounding a woman who was with the gunmen.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Aug 27, In Russia a man
doused himself with flammable liquids and set himself on fire on Red
Square before dozens of shocked tourists.
(AP, 8/28/06)
2006 Aug 30, Russia released two
Japanese fishermen held since their boat was seized for allegedly
fishing in Russian waters in a confrontation in which a crewman was
killed.
(AP, 8/30/06)
2006 Sep 2-2006 Sep 3, In
northwestern Russia hundreds of people looted shops and burned a
restaurant belonging to Caucasus businessmen in Kondopoga in Karelia.
The outbreak of racial violence was triggered by the recent killing of
two locals.
(Reuters, 9/3/06)
2006 Sep 5, Russian President
Vladimir Putin met South African leader Thabo Mbeki at the start of a
visit intended to forge closer ties between the mineral and diamond
superpowers.
(Reuters, 9/5/06)
2006 Sep 6, A fire broke out
aboard the Daniil Moskovsky, a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents
Sea, killing two crew members and injuring another. The navy said there
was no radiation threat.
(AP, 9/7/06)
2006 Sep 7, Russia's state-owned
nuclear power company said it was seeking to build Morocco's first
nuclear plant, as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed cooperation
deals with the Moroccan king as part of an economic mission to expand
Russia's African reach.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 7, In Siberia a blaze
broke out in the Darasun gold mine in the Chita region. 64 miners were
working underground when the fire broke out. 31 were rescued or
evacuated, including 15 who were hospitalized. Rescuers recovered 12
bodies. Eight miners emerged from the burning mine after two days. The
fate of at least nine others remained unknown in the accident that
killed at least 16. Rescuers on Sep 10 found the bodies of the last
four miners trapped deep underground at a remote Russian gold mine,
bringing the final death toll to 25. On Sep 11 Rescuers recovered the
bodies of the last of 25 miners.
(AP, 9/8/06)(AP, 9/9/06)(Reuters, 9/10/06)(AP,
9/11/06)
2006 Sep 8, Engineers covered in
head-to-toe protective gear inserted a neutralizing solution into bombs
filled with a nerve agent, officially starting the work of Russia's
first plant for destroying the deadly chemicals.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 10, One ethnic Russian
man was killed and three were injured in a brawl with ethnic Armenians
at a cafe in the town of Volsk in the Saratov region, fueling fears of
a rise of ethnic violence across Russia.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 11, President Vladimir
Putin gave final orders for a battalion of Russian engineers and
explosives experts to travel to Lebanon to help repair the damage
inflicted by Israel's campaign to uproot Hezbollah guerrillas.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 11, In southern Russia a
military helicopter crashed on the outskirts of Vladikavkaz, the
provincial capital of the republic of North Ossetia, killing at least
10 servicemen and injuring another four.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 13, A helicopter crashed
in Siberia, killing three of the four people aboard, an emergency
official said. The MD-600 helicopter crashed about 12 miles from the
city Novokuznetsk in the Kemerovo region about 1,850 miles east of
Moscow.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 13, Andrei Kozlov (41),
the top deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank, was shot in Moscow
along with his driver, by unidentified assailants. The driver was
killed immediately and Frankel died the next morning. Officials
suggested the attack was prompted by his efforts to clean up the
country's banking system. In October officials arrested 3 Ukrainian
citizens, who were allegedly hired to kill Kozlov. In Jan 2007 Alexei
Frankel, whose license was revoked by Kozlov in 2004, was charged with
organizing the murder. On Oct 28 a Moscow jury found Frankel guilty of
organizing the murder.
(AP, 9/14/06)(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.A1)(SFC, 10/17/06,
p.A15)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.76)(WSJ, 10/29/08, p.A14)
2006 Sep 18, Russia’s Ministry of
Natural Resources said it would cancel an environmental permit for a
$20 billion oil and natural gas project led by Royal Dutch Shell on the
Far East island of Sakhalin.
(WSJ, 9/19/06, p.A17)
2006 Sep 18, Anousheh Ansari (40),
an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, took off on a
Russian rocket bound for the international space station, becoming the
world's first paying female space tourist. Aboard the space station, an
oxygen generator overheated and spilled a toxic irritant, forcing the
crew to don masks and gloves in the first emergency ever declared
aboard the 8-year-old orbiting outpost.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2006 Sep 21, In Russia Gennady
Melikyan, deputy chairman of the Central Bank, was appointed top
regulator to replace the recently murdered Andrei Kozlov.
(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.A6)
2006 Sep 22, France and Russia
signed deals in the transport and aviation sectors worth 10 billion
dollars following a summit between Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and his
French counterpart Jacques Chirac.
(AP, 9/23/06)
2006 Sep 23, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac joined German
Chancellor Angela Merkel for a three-way informal summit in a chateau
in Compiegne.
(AP, 9/23/06)
2006 Sep 24, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, attackers stabbed to death Nitesh Kumar Singh, an Indian
medical student, in the latest in a series of hate crimes there.
(AP, 9/25/06)
2006 Sep 26, Russia and Iran
signed a deal in Moscow whereby Russia will ship fuel to a
controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March.
(AP, 9/26/06)
2006 Sep 27, Russia's chief
election body dismissed a petition aimed at allowing President Vladimir
Putin to run for a third term.
(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Sep 28, Russia agreed to
grant Cuba credit worth $350 million and restructure some of its recent
debt during a visit by PM Putin. The two countries also signed a
military cooperation agreement.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 29, Georgia charged four
Russian military officers with spying, while Russian government planes
evacuated dozens of diplomats and their relatives as the diplomatic
dispute worsened between Moscow and the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 30, Russia said that it
has suspended plans for further withdrawal of its troops from Georgia
amid worsening relations between the two neighbors.
(AP, 9/30/06)
2006 Sep 30, In Siberia Enver
Ziganshin, chief engineer for Rusia Petroleum, was found shot dead at
his country home. Rusia Petroleum an affiliate of BP PLC’s Russian
joint venture, faced problems over its license to produce natural gas
at the large Konvykta field.
(WSJ, 10/3/06, p.A6)
2006 Oct 2, Georgia released four
Russian officers whose arrest on spying charges prompted Moscow to
announce sweeping travel and communications sanctions in the worst
bilateral crisis in years.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Vladimir Kramnik of
Russia and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria played to a draw in Game 6 of
the world chess championship after Kramnik agreed to resume competition
after a dispute over bathroom breaks threatened to halt the tournament.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 3, Russia suspended all
transport and postal links with Georgia until further notice, sharply
escalating their dispute. The blockade caused economic problems for
Armenia, Georgia's landlocked southern neighbor, since Russia is its
main trading partner.
(AP, 10/3/06)(AP, 10/7/06)
2006 Oct 5, Russia froze
Georgians’ work permits and nearly doubled its gas bill.
(WSJ, 10/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 7, Anna Politkovskaya, a
Russian journalist, was shot to death, her body discovered in an
elevator in her apartment building in Moscow. She was known for her
critical coverage of the war in Chechnya. Politkovskaya, shot to death
in an apparent contract killing, was about to publish a story about
torture and abductions in Chechnya. In 2007 Random House published her
diaries under the title: “A Russian Diary.” In 2008 Russian
investigators named Rustam Makhmudov (34 of Chechnya as the executor of
the murder. Makhmudov was still at large. In 2008 Prosecutors charged
Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer, and 2 brothers from
Chechnya, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, with involvement in the
murder.
(AP, 10/8/06)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.91)(Econ, 4/7/07,
p.82)(WSJ, 5/13/08, p.A8)(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A9)
2006 Oct 9, Russia’s Gazprom said
it would develop the giant Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents
Sea alone and that it would send most of the gas by pipeline to Europe.
An earlier plan called for shipping most of the gas in liquefied form
to the US.
(WSJ, 10/10/06, p.A3)
2006 Oct 9, In Russia an apartment
building partially collapsed in the city of Vyborg near the Finnish
border. 7 bodies were later found in the rubble.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 9, North Korea faced
united global condemnation and calls for harsh sanctions after it
announced it had detonated an atomic weapon in an underground test.
Russia's defense minister said the nuclear test was equivalent to 5,000
tons to 15,000 tons of TNT. The US pushed for sanctions on North Korea
following its nuclear test.
(AP, 10/9/06)(SFC, 10/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 10, In Russia Alexander
Plokhin (58), the head of a branch of a state-controlled bank, was
fatally shot in Moscow, the latest in a series of apparent contract
killings.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 12, Georgia blocked the
next round of talks on Russia's bid to join the World Trade
Organization in retaliation for Moscow's blockade of its small southern
neighbor.
(AP, 10/12/06)
2006 Oct 13, Russia's Vladimir
Kramnik became the first universally recognized world chess champion
since 1993, winning a series of timed, tiebreaking games over
Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov to take a tournament that reunified the
title.
(AP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 13, A Russian court shut
down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a human rights group that
has exposed abuses against civilians in Chechnya. Director Stanislav
Dmitriyevsky denounced the ruling as part of an effort to silence
critics of the government's conduct in the violence-torn region.
(AP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 16, Russia demanded that
the US lift sanctions against two Russian companies accused of making
deals with Iran involving sensitive technology and hinted that a US
refusal could affect negotiations on a U.N. sanctions resolution
against Tehran.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 16, The business chief of
Russian state news agency Itar-Tass was found knifed to death at his
flat in central Moscow. Police in Russia’s North Caucasus region of
Ingushetia arrested rights activists and violently broke up a rally in
memory of slain reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
(AP, 10/16/06)(Reuters, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 17, It was reported that
teams of scientists from the Dubna nuclear research center in Moscow
and Livermore Lawrence National Laboratory in California had detected
element 118 after bombarding californium with calcium ions in a Russian
cyclotron.
(SFC, 10/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 18, In Russia Dmitry
Fotyanov, a mayoral candidate in Dalnegorsk, about 5,750 miles east of
Moscow, was gunned down as he left his campaign headquarters. Dozens of
foreign non-governmental organizations in Russia, including Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch, faced suspension after failing to
obtain necessary permits required under a tough new law.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 19, Russia forced nearly
100 foreign non-governmental organizations, including leading human
rights groups, to suspend operations for missing a deadline for
re-registration under a tough, new law.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 20, In Lahti, Finland, 25
EU leaders held a one-day summit on energy. Russian President Vladimir
Putin defended his government's tough stance on Georgia and dodged EU
leaders' demands that he commit to a legally binding energy charter
that would guarantee better access to Russia's oil and gas fields.
(AP, 10/20/06)
2006 Oct 21, Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said that Russia was ready to discuss ways to pressure
Iran into accepting a broader international oversight of its nuclear
program, but added that "any measures of influence should encourage
creating conditions for talks." He said Russia will not allow the UN
Security Council to be used to punish Iran over its nuclear program.
Russia indicated it would strictly enforce sanctions on North Korea as
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met top leaders in Moscow at the
end of a tour to push for full implementation of the UN penalties in
response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test. Rice delivered a symbolic rebuke
to Russia over shrinking press freedoms, even as she courted President
Vladimir Putin for help punishing Iran over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 10/21/06)(AP, 10/21/07)
2006 Oct 24, Officials said Russia
has allowed dozens of foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to
resume operations and was speeding up the registration process for
others barred from working last week.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 24, Georgia's Foreign
Ministry said it had protested to the UN about Russia's crackdown on
illegal Georgian migrants, demanding a stop to what it called
"persecution on ethnic grounds."
(AP, 10/24/06)
2006 Oct 26, Russia rejected a
draft UN resolution put forward by European powers targeting Iran's
nuclear program, saying the proposed measures did not advance
objectives agreed on earlier by major world powers.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 27, A new US
congressional study said Russia surpassed the US in 2005 as the world
leader in weapons deals with the developing world.
(SSFC, 10/29/06, p.A19)
2006 Oct 28, Russian authorities
said dozens of people have died and more than 1,000 received hospital
treatment in a wave of alcohol poisoning that is sweeping the country.
(AP, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 28, The Millionaire Fair,
founded by Yves Gijrath, opened in Moscow. It was first held in
Amsterdam in 2002.
(Reuters, 10/29/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Moscow top Russian
and US military officers signed a cooperation agreement that lays out
plans for joint activities for the coming year.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, A Russian company won
a bid to construct a second nuclear plant in Bulgaria.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Nov 1, Alexander Litvinenko,
a former KGB agent, met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian muckraker, at
a Picadilly sushi bar. He also met with 2 or more visiting ex-KGB
Russians. On Nov 23 Litvinenko died of poisoning from radioactive
element polonium-210. In 2007 British prosecutors requested the
extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, one of the former KGB agents present at
the meeting, in order to charge him with murder.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.22)(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.A14)
2006 Nov 2, Russia's
state-controlled natural gas monopoly said that it would more than
double the price it charges Georgia, further heightening tensions
between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, Russia and China
indicated that they will not support a draft UN resolution imposing
tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment
program.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, Russia proposed major
amendments to a European draft resolution on Iran, saying it wants
sanctions limited to measures that will keep Tehran from developing
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles while keeping the door open for
negotiations.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 4, Russian police
arrested hundreds of ultranationalist demonstrators who took to
Moscow's streets, forcefully putting an end to the banned protest amid
an increase in hate crimes.
(AP, 11/4/06)
2006 Nov 9, Russia’s Supreme Court
overturned the acquittal of three suspects in the killing of US
journalist Paul Klebnikov (2004). The court ordered a new trial with a
new judge.
(AP, 11/9/06)
2006 Nov 10, Igor Sergeyev (68),
former Russian defense minister (1997-2001), died.
(AP, 11/10/06)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.89)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached
their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed
the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia,
Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other
nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail
routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and
expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the
Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 15, President Bush, on
his way to Asia for an eight-day trip and Pacific Rim meeting, paid a
quick call on President Vladimir Putin. The two presidents discussed
the Iranian nuclear program, the situation in the Middle East and
nuclear nonproliferation. Bush and confirmed that they plan to sign a
bilateral deal next week for Russia's accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO).
(AP, 11/15/06)(Reuters, 11/15/06)
2006 Nov 16, Konstantin
Romodanovsky, Russia’s director of the Federal Migration Service, said
foreigners should no be allowed to create ethnic enclaves in which they
outnumber native Russians. The Muslim population has risen to about 25
million and it was estimated to make up a fifth of the population by
2020.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.A20)
2006 Nov 16, In Russia Yuri Levada
(76), pioneering sociologist, died. He was shut out of his profession
in Soviet times but came back to track public opinion as Russia made
the transition from communism, died at his institute in Moscow.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 16, Canada said it had
arrested a foreign man who it branded a threat to national security and
who one national newspaper identified as a possible Russian spy. On Nov
21 the government released a document saying: "The Canadian Security
Intelligence Service has reasonable grounds to believe that the foreign
national alleging to be Paul William Hampel is a member of the Sluzhba
Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), the foreign intelligence service of the
Russian intelligence services."
(AP, 11/16/06)(Reuters, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 17, Russian authorities
said 5 senior officials at a federal health insurance fund have been
arrested on suspicion of bribery, days after Russia's top prosecutor
said that corruption has "permeated all levels" of the government.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 18, Movladi Baisarov, the
former head of one of Chechnya's shadowy security forces, was fatally
shot in Moscow by law enforcement officers who were trying to detain
him on suspicion of abductions and killings in the violence-plagued
southern region.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 19, Russia and the US
signed a key trade agreement, removing the last major obstacle in
Moscow's 13-year journey to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 19, Fellow dissidents
said Col. Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB and Federal Security
Service (FSB) poisoned in Britain and now gravely ill and under guard
in the hospital, may have been targeted for his outspoken criticism of
former colleagues in Moscow. He accused his country's secret service
agency of staging apartment-house bombings in 1999 that killed more
than 300 people in Russia and sparked the second war in Chechnya.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 21, Konstantin
Meshcheryakov, co-owner of a small Russian private bank, was gunned
down in an apparent contract killing in central Moscow.
Spetssetstroibank with offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg opened in
1994.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 22, The European
Commission said Russia had told the 25-nation bloc it intends to ban
all animal product exports from the EU starting next year because
Moscow claimed new members Bulgaria and Romania had poor animal health
standards.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 22, Amnesty International
accused Russian police of beating and torturing suspects and criticized
authorities for what it said were insufficient investigations into such
allegations.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 23, An environmental
activist alleged that highly toxic chemicals had accidentally spilled
from weapons being reprocessed at the Maradykovsky reprocessing plant,
450 miles northeast of Moscow. The plant is a focal point of the push
to meet an April 2007 target set by the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for Russia to destroy 20 percent of its
stockpile.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, Alexander Litvinenko,
a former KGB agent, died in London. The British government said
Litvinenko, the former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic, had a toxic
radioactive substance in his body. Litvinenko had blamed a "barbaric
and ruthless" Russian President Vladimir Putin for his fatal poisoning.
The radioactive element polonium-210 was found in Litvinenko's urine.
In 2007 it was reported that Litvinenko had been working for British
secret intelligence service MI6.
(AP, 11/24/06)(AP, 10/27/07)
2006 Nov 24, A Defense Ministry
official said Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air defense missile
systems to Iran, confirming that Moscow would proceed with arms deals
with Tehran in spite of Western criticism.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, A UN anti-torture
panel said it had credible reports of unofficial detention centers,
abuse and disappearances in Russia's restive southern province of
Chechnya.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, Fishing nations led
by Iceland and Russia blocked UN negotiators from imposing a
full-fledged ban against destructive bottom trawling on the high seas.
After weeks of talks in New York, a United Nations committee that
oversees high seas fisheries failed to gain unanimous support this week
for ending unregulated bottom trawling.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 26, Mestnye (meaning
Locals), a pro-government youth group raided outdoor markets in the
Moscow region to help authorities find illegal migrants. Police
detained several dozen people after fighting broke out.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 27, In Russia Ruslan
Fedosenko and Sergei Kocherov, who had worked for Moscow's Perovsky
district prosecutor's office, were convicted of corruption and
sentenced to four-year prison terms.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 28, Russia’s Pres. Putin
said the ban on Moldovan wine and meat products would be lifted, a move
that appeared to be aimed at easing Moscow's entry into the WTO. Putin
also said Russia and Moldova would resume a dialogue aimed at resolving
Moldova's conflict with Trans-Dniester.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Nov 29, Fire struck a
workshop at Russia's largest steel mill, killing six people, as
firefighters' efforts were hampered by temperatures that fell to 17
degrees below zero.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Nov 30, In Russia doctors
treating former PM Yegor Gaidar, who fell ill in Ireland last week,
said they believed he was poisoned.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 3, A Dubai-based
developer announced that it plans to build a new Russian city on 44,000
acres near Moscow.
(AP, 12/3/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia's atomic energy
agency declined to comment on Japanese news reports that North Korea
had offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits in
exchange for support at six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia gave a frosty
welcome to a team of British counter-terror officers probing the
poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, and laid down
some strict ground rules for their work in Moscow.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, A Russian court
sentenced Ruslan Melnik (22), a leader of an extremist group known as
the Mad Crowd, to 3 1/2 years in prison for hate crime attacks on
foreigners.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 6, Scotland Yard
announced it was treating the death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko
as a homicide. British investigators spoke with Dmitry Kovtun, one of
at least two Russians who met Litvinenko in a London hotel on November
1. Litvinenko died on November 23 from radiation poisoning caused by
polonium 210. Andrei Lugovoi, hospitalized in Moscow and being tested
for possible polonium contamination, was scheduled to be interviewed by
British investigators, but the interview was postponed. British
officials said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 have been
detected at a London stadium that hosted a soccer game attended by
Lugovoi.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill dropping a minimal turnout
threshold in polls, which critics say will make them less fair, despite
a plea by his human rights adviser not to do so.
(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 7, The Prosecutor
General's office said Russia has opened a criminal case in the
poisoning death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko. The office also
said it had opened a criminal investigation into the attempted killing
of Dmitry Kovtun, one of at least two Russian businessmen who met
Litvinenko in London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1, hours before the
former spy fell fatally ill.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 8, In Moscow local media
said Andrei Lugovoy, a second Russian businessman who met murdered
ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, is now sick from
radiation poisoning.
(AP, 12/8/06)
2006 Dec 9, A suspicious fire
combined with a blocked exit turned the women's ward of a Moscow drug
treatment hospital into a deathtrap as flames and smoke overcame
patients while they struggled to get out. At least 45 women were killed.
(AP, 12/9/06)
2006 Dec 9, German police found
traces of radiation in two buildings linked to a Russian businessman
who met the murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London on the day
he fell ill. Radiation traces were found overnight in an apartment
belonging to Dmitry Kovtun's ex-wife in the northern city of Hamburg.
Kovtun is now in hospital.
(AP, 12/9/06)
2006 Dec 10, In Siberia 9 patients
of a clinic for the mentally ill died in a fire.
(AP, 12/10/06)
2006 Dec 11, The Hague-based
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it has
granted the US and Russia a five-year extension to the 2007 deadline
for destroying their chemical weapon stockpiles. The Chemicals Weapons
Convention which went into effect in April 1997. Extensions were also
granted to India and Libya as well as one country that requested
anonymity.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 11, German investigators
confirmed that a car used by Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, a
contact of fatally poisoned ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko before the two
men met, was contaminated with the rare radioactive substance
polonium-210.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, Russia's Gazprom
closed in on half of Royal Dutch Shell's $22 billion Sakhalin-2 energy
project while Shell denied it had buckled under Kremlin pressure and
warned Moscow the world was watching.
(AP, 12/12/06)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 14, In Georgia the last
train carrying military hardware and property owned by units of the
Group of Russian Troops left the Tbilisi garrison for Armenia. The last
of Russia’s servicemen were to leave the next day. This ended a
200-year-old Russian presence in Tbilisi.
(www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11647105)
2006 Dec 15, Russian news agencies
reported that Russia will replace single nuclear warheads on some of
its strategic missiles with multiple warheads allowing Moscow to
modernize its nuclear arsenal while building fewer new missiles and
spending less.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 16, Russian authorities
pulled hundreds of opposition activists off buses and trains and
detained them along with scores of others ahead of a rare
anti-government rally in Moscow. More than 2,000 people gathered in
Triumfalnaya Square, where leftist and liberal groups demanded that
Russian President Vladimir Putin stop what they called Russia's retreat
from democracy.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 16, Ex-spy Yuri Shvets,
who is based in the US, told the BBC that murdered Russian spy
Alexander Litvinenko was killed because of an eight-page dossier he had
compiled on a powerful Russian figure for a British company. The BBC
said the report contained damaging personal details about a "very
highly placed member of Putin's administration."
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 21, Royal Dutch Shell and
its partners agreed to hand over 50% plus one share of the Sakhalin II
oil and gas project to OAO Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy
firm, for $7.45 billion. Shell and its partners have already put $12
billion into the project, which was about 80% complete.
(WSJ, 12/22/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 22, A top executive with
Russian gas giant OAO Gazprom said Georgia will pay more than double
what it pays now for Russian natural gas under a new agreement.
(AP, 12/22/06)
2006 Dec 22, In Ukraine Russia’s
Pres. Putin and Pres. Yushchenko oversaw the signing of numerous
bilateral accords. Putin assured his Ukrainian counterpart that Moscow
wants good relations, in a meeting that both leaders presented as a
break from the strained relationship of the past.
(AP, 12/22/06)
2006 Dec 25, Russian security
forces killed a suspected militant holed up in an apartment building in
the southern province of Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
(AP, 12/25/06)
2006 Dec 26, Talks between Belarus
and the Russian state gas monopoly on Russia's demand for a price
increase brought no resolution and a top company official said Belarus
could face a New Year's gas cutoff. Gazprom said it failed to gain
assent to double gas prices, but added that any cutoff would no affect
EU nations.
(AP, 12/26/06)(WSJ, 12/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 26, Canada deported a man
who posed as a Canadian for years, describing him as a Russian spy who
used a fake birth certificate to create a false identity and accumulate
three Canadian passports. The man, who acquired passports in the name
of Paul William Hampel, left Canada for Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/06)
2006 Dec 27, Belarus issued an
implicit threat that it could stop Russian gas deliveries through its
pipelines to western Europe unless Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom
relented on demands Minsk pay steep price increases in 2007.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 31, Belarus agreed to a
more than doubling of the price it pays for Russian gas, signing what
it called an "unfortunate" deal two minutes before a midnight New
Year's Eve deadline expired.
(AFP, 1/1/07)
2006 A Georgian undercover agent
made contact with a Russian seller of uranium in North Ossetia. The
seller was arrested when they met in Tbilisi with 3.5 ounces of
enriched uranium, which made it weapons grade material.
(SFC, 1/25/07, p.A18)
2006 Morgan Stanley estimated that
securities trading in Russia rose by over 60% this year.
(Econ, 5/19/07, SR p.18)
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