The Soviet Union was born in civil war, and most Russians expected it to die in a similar blood bath. Yet the collapse of the Soviet Union was not accompanied or followed by large-scale, neighbor-on-neighbor violence and for that, Russians

It has been two years since the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation adopted the well-known Resolution #53 relating to unjustified tax benefit. Despite the backlash, one may find it quite difficult to overestimate the significance

In 2008, the court practice related to tax disputes was marked by a number of important decrees adopted by SAC of the RF that may lead to some reduction of tax control, as well as to the limitation of some

Unlike Western countries, in Russia it is very common to use the courts to settle disputes with tax authorities. In an effort to ease the position of the arbitration court, from January 1, 2009, legislators have obligated taxpayers to appeal

Serbia and Gazprom again put off an agreement that would finalize the long-planned sale of Serbian oil monopoly NIS by the end of the year, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Friday.

President Islam Karimov's regime in Uzbekistan has survived for 19 years, in no small part because it has repeatedly resorted to police brutality and torture to extract confessions from people who have committed no crime. These tactics have also been

U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. said Monday that it would suspend production at its Russian plant for one month as the global financial crisis slashes demand for cars.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday signed agreements to develop new nuclear plants in India as the countries sought to deepen ties beyond their historic defense and weapon sales relationship.

Portsmouth owner Alexander Gaidamak has decided to sell the English Premier League club and has already rejected two offers, the Sunday Mirror reported.

The lawyer for the family of slain Ingush opposition leader Magomed Yevloyev has been appointed as an adviser to the new president of Ingushetia, a move analysts said is an attempt to stabilize the volatile North Caucasus republic.

Activists from the youth wing of United Russia held demonstrations against immigrant workers Monday, demanding that they return home and blaming them for the country's recent economic woes.

Oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has requested the Federal Tariffs Service to allow it to raise its oil-shipping fee by an average of 21 percent in 2009, an agency official said Monday.

Globalization is a double-edged sword. What was initially viewed as an essentially all-American, mortgage-confined problem has spread out widely, trouncing bank balance sheets across the world, siphoning off credit lines and prompting a massive deleveraging on financial markets. Perhaps even

More than 100 nations signed an international convention rejecting the use of cluster bombs last week. But Georgia and Russia, the most recent countries to deploy these weapons, were not among them.

The crisis is so severe that economic measures alone will not be enough to combat it. The crisis is spilling over into the political and administrative spheres, compounding the shortcomings of the existing system. The Kremlin realizes how serious this

Russia, the world's third-largest thermal coal exporter, has little option but to cut production and become a reluctant global swing producer next year, said senior industry sources in Moscow and beyond.

The government will provide the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending with 200 billion rubles ($7.2 billion) to support the mortgage market, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Friday.

Hydroelectric company RusHydro said Monday that it did not rule out that the government could revise tariffs for 2009 because of the global financial turmoil.

Electricity trader Inter RAO has signed a memorandum of intent with Canadian gas firm Tethys to work jointly on oil and gas exploration in Central Asia, Tethys said in a statement.

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