Timeline Russia 1996-2006
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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 28, Russia joined the Council of Europe and halted capital punishment. The Russian Federation had applied to join the Council of Europe on 7 May 1992.
(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A2)(http://www.ena.lu/)
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 19, The Arctic Council was founded to promote joint scientific research and to study pollution, conservation and mapping. The Ottawa Declaration named eight members of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the United States, Sweden and Finland. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS).
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Council)
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. Boris Yeltsin joined Bill Clinton and the leaders of the 15 other NATO member states in signing the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation."
(AP, 5/27/98)(www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_05/jm)
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 Jun 27, A Tajikistan formal peace accord was signed in Moscow that was brokered by Russia and Iran. A power sharing arrangement was foreseen between Pres. Emomali Rakhmanov and opposition leader Said Abdullo. The opposition led by the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) was guaranteed 30% of government positions. Up to 150,000 people had been killed in the 5-year civil war.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A11)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.D2)(Econ, 11/11/06, p.50)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.42)
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 In Russia AO Dovgan Protected Quality Corp. led by Valdimir Dovgan had revenues of $400 mil.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A1)
1997 A new Russian 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 Russian Pres. Yeltsin’s annual earnings were reported to be $320,000.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1997 Russia's 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)
1997 Gunvor, a Cyprus-registered commodities dealer, was created by Russian oil trader Gennady Timchenko and Swedish oil trader Torbjorn Tornqvist. By 2011 its revenues had grown to $80 billion.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.59)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunvor_%28company%29)
1997 Yandex, a Russian search engine, was founded. In 2011 it listed on NASDAQ. By 2017 its products and services included taxis, shopping, payments, music and education.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.59)
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 hand 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 Kazakhstan. [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, Kazakhstan 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. In 2010 Martin Gilman authored “No Precedent, No Plan: Inside Russia’s 1998 Default."
(WSJ, 8/18/98, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/99)(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.95)
1998 Aug 23, Russia’s Pres. Yeltsin dismissed the government. He fired PM Kiriyenko (b.1962) 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, Kazakhstan 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 Aleksandar Georgijevic, a Serbian national, attempted to collect information on a number of Russian military projects, including the Iskander tactical missiles and the R-500, a supersonic cruise missile. But only information on the "Arena" tank protection system was passed on to a US agent. Georgijevic was arrested in November 2007 as he tried to leave the country through a Moscow airport, where his name was already on a wanted list. In 2009 Georgijevic was jailed for 8 years.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
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 a 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, Islamic fighters based in Chechnya seized at least 2 village in Dagestan. Warlords Shamil Basayev and Wahabi commander Amir Khattab (Hattab) were reported to be involved. This triggered the second Chechen war. The Wahabis are a puritan branch of Sunni Islam founded in the 18th century in Saudi Arabia.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A20)(Econ, 4/9/11, p.28)
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 rebel 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 Russia the first issue of Vedomosti, a business newspaper, appeared. The half pink and half white paper was a tribute to its co-founders and shareholders: the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 2020 a new acting editor was imposed by prospective buyers in a yet to be completed takeover.
(Econ., 5/9/20, p.40)
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 Aug 29, Russia signed an agreement between the government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation concerning the Management and Disposition of Plutonium Designated as no Longer Required for Defense Purposes and Related Cooperation. The US signed the Plutonium Management and Disposal Agreement (PDMA) document on September 1. On Oct 3, 2016, Russia withdrew from the agreement.
(http://tinyurl.com/hyn3gj8)(Econ, 10/8/16, p.48)
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 22, A $2.5 billion oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea was reported completed by an int’l. consortium. Pumping of 600,000 barrels per day was expected to begin in 2001.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D5)
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 2, In Vietnam the Russian flag was lowered over the Cam Rhan Bay naval base for the last time.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ranh_Bay)
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 a 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 creating the NATO-Russia Council for participation in NATO discussions on a fixed variety of subjects, but no veto power.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO%E2%80%93Russia_relations)(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 an 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 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)
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 Russia changed its citizenship law to allow massive distribution of passports to people in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.65)
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, China’s President Hu Jintao called for a "multipolar world" and a strategic partnership with Russia to counter US 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 Aug, British Petroleum bought half of Russia’s Tyumen Oil Co. for $6.75 billion. TNK-BP was originally formed from the assets of TNK (Tyumen Oil Co), Onako, Sidanco and the majority of BP’s Russian assets. TNK-BP became equally owned by BP and AAR, a consortium controlled by 3 billionaires.
(Econ, 5/22/04, Survey p.11)(http://tinyurl.com/4lfczjv)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.67)
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 Russia arrested Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage on behalf of the United States. Zaporozhsky quit the service in 1997 and settled in the United States; Russia enticed him back and arrested him in 2001. He was convicted on charges of passing secret information about Russian agents working under cover in the US and about American sources working for Russian intelligence. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2003 Russia took over the responsibility for the Soviet Union's debt to the former Yugoslavia estimated at $1.3 billion.
(AP, 3/21/17)
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, a military analyst with the USA and Canada Institute, a respected Moscow-based think-tank, to 15 years on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and other weapons to a British company that Russia claimed was a CIA cover. Sutyagin insisted on his innocence, saying the information he provided was available from open sources. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 4/7/04)(AP, 7/9/10)
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 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 over 1100 people, many 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis)
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. Ultimately 334 people, including 186 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. The 2005 film “Lord of War" was a loose portrayal of Bout’s exploits.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A3)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.65)
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. Kaloyev was released in 2007.
(AP, 10/26/05)(AP, 7/1/12)
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. In 2008 Browder complained that a gang of bent policemen had stolen his Russian companies and used them to embezzle $230 million of state funds. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in 2009 while in jail.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.70)(Econ, 11/28/09, p.57)
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 In Russia renovation began on the building at 9 Vozdvizhenka Street known as the Volkonsky House, named after its former owner General Nikolai Volkonsky, the grandfather of author Leo Tolstoy. In 2017 it was reported that the building was renovated with help from associates of Pres. Putin, and that the rental income is paid to a private company owned by a person whose name is the same as the maiden name of Putin's former wife, Lyudmila Putina.
(Reuters, 5/19/17)
2005 In Russia the Voina art collective was founded by a Moscow philosophy student. The street-art group became known for their provocative and politically charged works of performance art.
(SFC, 1/3/12, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voina)
2005 Russia arrested Gennady Vasilenko. Vasilenko, a former KGB officer employed as a security officer by Russia's NTV television. In 2006 he was sentenced to three years in prison on murky charges of illegal weapons possession and resistance to authorities. Reasons for his involvement in the swap weren't immediately clear. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2005 New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft met with Pres. Putin in St Petersburg after the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. Kraft reportedly showed his Superbowl ring to Putin and Putin put it on. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out." The White House under Pres. George W. Bush, told Kraft it would be better for relations with Moscow if he treated it as a gift.
(Reuters, 6/16/13)
2005 Russian internet investors Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger pooled their interests in mail.ru, a Russian web portal, and created Digital Sky Technologies (DST).
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.61)
2005 Element 118 was created by a team from Livermore, Ca., and scientists at the Dubna heavy ion accelerator in Russia.
(SFC, 4/8/10, p.C5)
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)
2005 Felix Sater started pushing a Trump tower project in Moscow. Sater was later accused by BTA Bank of Kazakhstan and the city of Almaty that he had conspired with the son of a former mayor to use some of $440 million stolen from the bank to develop a Trump tower in Moscow. Sater tried to kick start the project during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, but it was never built.
(SFC, 3/27/19, p.A4)
2005 In the Dominican Republic Diego (7), an adopted boy from Russia’s Volgograd region, was abandoned by a Russian couple who left him in the Boca Chica tourist zone with a driver who worked for them during their stay in the Caribbean country. After returning to Russia, authorities arrested the couple for cocaine trafficking. The boy lived with the taxi driver and his wife until authorities received allegations they were mistreating him. In 2008, he was taken away and sent to a temporary shelter for children who have been victims of domestic violence.
(AP, 4/21/10)
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. The FSB then alleged that Britain was making covert payments to pro-democracy and human rights groups. In 2012 Jonathan Powell, a former Downing Street official, admitted for the first time that Britain was responsible for the James Bond-style spy plot involving the fake rock.
(AP, 1/23/06)(AFP, 1/19/12)
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. In 2011 Alexander Kuchma, Khodorkovsky's former cellmate, told a Russian online publication that authorities forced him to attack the jailed tycoon and falsify a sexual harassment suit.
(AP, 4/15/06)(AP, 5/16/11)
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 colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was sentenced by a military court in Moscow to 13 years imprisonment for passing along state secrets to Britain. He was accused of revealing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 8/9/06)(AP, 7/9/10)
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 The European Court of Human Rights overturned a Russian ban on the Salvation Army’s registration.
(Econ, 2/2/13, p.73)
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 Foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China began annual meetings as a group. In 2001 Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC to describe these 4 developing countries.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC)
2006 In Russia Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai founded VKontakte and it grew to become the biggest social network in the country. In 2013 Durov left Russia and gave up his role and ownership stake after Pres. Putin’s allies took control of the company.
(SFC, 3/8/18, p.C6)
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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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 28, Russia joined the Council of Europe and halted capital punishment. The Russian Federation had applied to join the Council of Europe on 7 May 1992.
(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A2)(http://www.ena.lu/)
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 19, The Arctic Council was founded to promote joint scientific research and to study pollution, conservation and mapping. The Ottawa Declaration named eight members of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the United States, Sweden and Finland. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS).
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Council)
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. Boris Yeltsin joined Bill Clinton and the leaders of the 15 other NATO member states in signing the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation."
(AP, 5/27/98)(www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_05/jm)
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 Jun 27, A Tajikistan formal peace accord was signed in Moscow that was brokered by Russia and Iran. A power sharing arrangement was foreseen between Pres. Emomali Rakhmanov and opposition leader Said Abdullo. The opposition led by the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) was guaranteed 30% of government positions. Up to 150,000 people had been killed in the 5-year civil war.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A11)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.D2)(Econ, 11/11/06, p.50)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.42)
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 In Russia AO Dovgan Protected Quality Corp. led by Valdimir Dovgan had revenues of $400 mil.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A1)
1997 A new Russian 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 Russian Pres. Yeltsin’s annual earnings were reported to be $320,000.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1997 Russia's 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)
1997 Gunvor, a Cyprus-registered commodities dealer, was created by Russian oil trader Gennady Timchenko and Swedish oil trader Torbjorn Tornqvist. By 2011 its revenues had grown to $80 billion.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.59)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunvor_%28company%29)
1997 Yandex, a Russian search engine, was founded. In 2011 it listed on NASDAQ. By 2017 its products and services included taxis, shopping, payments, music and education.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.59)
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 hand 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 Kazakhstan. [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, Kazakhstan 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. In 2010 Martin Gilman authored “No Precedent, No Plan: Inside Russia’s 1998 Default."
(WSJ, 8/18/98, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/99)(WSJ, 10/4/00, p.A10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.95)
1998 Aug 23, Russia’s Pres. Yeltsin dismissed the government. He fired PM Kiriyenko (b.1962) 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, Kazakhstan 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 Aleksandar Georgijevic, a Serbian national, attempted to collect information on a number of Russian military projects, including the Iskander tactical missiles and the R-500, a supersonic cruise missile. But only information on the "Arena" tank protection system was passed on to a US agent. Georgijevic was arrested in November 2007 as he tried to leave the country through a Moscow airport, where his name was already on a wanted list. In 2009 Georgijevic was jailed for 8 years.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
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 a 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, Islamic fighters based in Chechnya seized at least 2 village in Dagestan. Warlords Shamil Basayev and Wahabi commander Amir Khattab (Hattab) were reported to be involved. This triggered the second Chechen war. The Wahabis are a puritan branch of Sunni Islam founded in the 18th century in Saudi Arabia.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A20)(Econ, 4/9/11, p.28)
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 rebel 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 Russia the first issue of Vedomosti, a business newspaper, appeared. The half pink and half white paper was a tribute to its co-founders and shareholders: the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 2020 a new acting editor was imposed by prospective buyers in a yet to be completed takeover.
(Econ., 5/9/20, p.40)
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 Aug 29, Russia signed an agreement between the government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation concerning the Management and Disposition of Plutonium Designated as no Longer Required for Defense Purposes and Related Cooperation. The US signed the Plutonium Management and Disposal Agreement (PDMA) document on September 1. On Oct 3, 2016, Russia withdrew from the agreement.
(http://tinyurl.com/hyn3gj8)(Econ, 10/8/16, p.48)
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 22, A $2.5 billion oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea was reported completed by an int’l. consortium. Pumping of 600,000 barrels per day was expected to begin in 2001.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D5)
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 2, In Vietnam the Russian flag was lowered over the Cam Rhan Bay naval base for the last time.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ranh_Bay)
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 a 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 creating the NATO-Russia Council for participation in NATO discussions on a fixed variety of subjects, but no veto power.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO%E2%80%93Russia_relations)(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 an 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 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)
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 Russia changed its citizenship law to allow massive distribution of passports to people in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.65)
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, China’s President Hu Jintao called for a "multipolar world" and a strategic partnership with Russia to counter US 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 Aug, British Petroleum bought half of Russia’s Tyumen Oil Co. for $6.75 billion. TNK-BP was originally formed from the assets of TNK (Tyumen Oil Co), Onako, Sidanco and the majority of BP’s Russian assets. TNK-BP became equally owned by BP and AAR, a consortium controlled by 3 billionaires.
(Econ, 5/22/04, Survey p.11)(http://tinyurl.com/4lfczjv)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.67)
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 Russia arrested Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage on behalf of the United States. Zaporozhsky quit the service in 1997 and settled in the United States; Russia enticed him back and arrested him in 2001. He was convicted on charges of passing secret information about Russian agents working under cover in the US and about American sources working for Russian intelligence. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2003 Russia took over the responsibility for the Soviet Union's debt to the former Yugoslavia estimated at $1.3 billion.
(AP, 3/21/17)
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, a military analyst with the USA and Canada Institute, a respected Moscow-based think-tank, to 15 years on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and other weapons to a British company that Russia claimed was a CIA cover. Sutyagin insisted on his innocence, saying the information he provided was available from open sources. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 4/7/04)(AP, 7/9/10)
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 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 over 1100 people, many 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)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis)
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. Ultimately 334 people, including 186 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. The 2005 film “Lord of War" was a loose portrayal of Bout’s exploits.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A3)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.65)
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. Kaloyev was released in 2007.
(AP, 10/26/05)(AP, 7/1/12)
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. In 2008 Browder complained that a gang of bent policemen had stolen his Russian companies and used them to embezzle $230 million of state funds. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in 2009 while in jail.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.70)(Econ, 11/28/09, p.57)
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 In Russia renovation began on the building at 9 Vozdvizhenka Street known as the Volkonsky House, named after its former owner General Nikolai Volkonsky, the grandfather of author Leo Tolstoy. In 2017 it was reported that the building was renovated with help from associates of Pres. Putin, and that the rental income is paid to a private company owned by a person whose name is the same as the maiden name of Putin's former wife, Lyudmila Putina.
(Reuters, 5/19/17)
2005 In Russia the Voina art collective was founded by a Moscow philosophy student. The street-art group became known for their provocative and politically charged works of performance art.
(SFC, 1/3/12, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voina)
2005 Russia arrested Gennady Vasilenko. Vasilenko, a former KGB officer employed as a security officer by Russia's NTV television. In 2006 he was sentenced to three years in prison on murky charges of illegal weapons possession and resistance to authorities. Reasons for his involvement in the swap weren't immediately clear. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2005 New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft met with Pres. Putin in St Petersburg after the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. Kraft reportedly showed his Superbowl ring to Putin and Putin put it on. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out." The White House under Pres. George W. Bush, told Kraft it would be better for relations with Moscow if he treated it as a gift.
(Reuters, 6/16/13)
2005 Russian internet investors Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger pooled their interests in mail.ru, a Russian web portal, and created Digital Sky Technologies (DST).
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.61)
2005 Element 118 was created by a team from Livermore, Ca., and scientists at the Dubna heavy ion accelerator in Russia.
(SFC, 4/8/10, p.C5)
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)
2005 Felix Sater started pushing a Trump tower project in Moscow. Sater was later accused by BTA Bank of Kazakhstan and the city of Almaty that he had conspired with the son of a former mayor to use some of $440 million stolen from the bank to develop a Trump tower in Moscow. Sater tried to kick start the project during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, but it was never built.
(SFC, 3/27/19, p.A4)
2005 In the Dominican Republic Diego (7), an adopted boy from Russia’s Volgograd region, was abandoned by a Russian couple who left him in the Boca Chica tourist zone with a driver who worked for them during their stay in the Caribbean country. After returning to Russia, authorities arrested the couple for cocaine trafficking. The boy lived with the taxi driver and his wife until authorities received allegations they were mistreating him. In 2008, he was taken away and sent to a temporary shelter for children who have been victims of domestic violence.
(AP, 4/21/10)
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. The FSB then alleged that Britain was making covert payments to pro-democracy and human rights groups. In 2012 Jonathan Powell, a former Downing Street official, admitted for the first time that Britain was responsible for the James Bond-style spy plot involving the fake rock.
(AP, 1/23/06)(AFP, 1/19/12)
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. In 2011 Alexander Kuchma, Khodorkovsky's former cellmate, told a Russian online publication that authorities forced him to attack the jailed tycoon and falsify a sexual harassment suit.
(AP, 4/15/06)(AP, 5/16/11)
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 colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was sentenced by a military court in Moscow to 13 years imprisonment for passing along state secrets to Britain. He was accused of revealing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe. In 2010 he was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 8/9/06)(AP, 7/9/10)
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 The European Court of Human Rights overturned a Russian ban on the Salvation Army’s registration.
(Econ, 2/2/13, p.73)
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 Foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China began annual meetings as a group. In 2001 Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC to describe these 4 developing countries.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC)
2006 In Russia Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai founded VKontakte and it grew to become the biggest social network in the country. In 2013 Durov left Russia and gave up his role and ownership stake after Pres. Putin’s allies took control of the company.
(SFC, 3/8/18, p.C6)
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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