Russian Government

MOSCOW - Yukos, Russia's largest oil company, filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court in Houston yesterday in an attempt to prevent the Russian government from auctioning off its core assets this weekend. Yukos hopes the filing might force the Kremlin into arbitration over what many analysts say is a politically motivated campaign to bring down the company and its billionaire founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The company also asked for a temporary restraining order to block Sunday's auction of its main oil-pumping division, Yuganskneftegaz.

Sen. Ben Cardin is scheduled to meet Thursday with the family of a Russian lawyer whose death sparked an international outcry over human rights in that country, renewing focus on a controversy that has complicated U.S.-Russian relations at a sensitive time. The meeting with the widow, mother and son of Sergei Magnitsky — who died in a Russian jail in 2009 after exposing corruption in the Russian government — comes just days after the State Department released a list of Russian officials barred from obtaining U.S. visas over alleged human rights abuses.

TOKYO -- The Japanese government plans to offer Shinkansen bullet train technology in assisting Russia's planned improvement to its national railway networks, including the Trans-Siberian Railway, government sources said. The Tokyo government will work out concrete details of the assistance program by autumn, establishing a working group of government officials and corporations from both countries, they said. By offering railway technology to Russia, the government hopes to expand business opportunities for Japanese firms in the rapidly emerging economy, the sources said.

WASHINGTON -- Russia has ordered the expulsion of two American military attaches working at the United States Embassy in Moscow, the State Department said yesterday. "I can confirm the two military attaches have been asked to leave the country," said Gonzo R. Gallegos, the department's director of press relations. "We object to these actions, but we'll comply with the Russian government's request." No one at the State Department would speculate about the reasons for the expulsions, although the United States has reportedly expelled a handful of Russians in recent years in little-noticed diplomatic dust-ups.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States would seek clarification from Russia about an American military report that it had helped pass information to Iraq before the 2003 invasion, but she declined to make any specific allegations. "I don't have any reason to doubt or confirm the report at this point," Rice said on Fox News Sunday. "I do think we have to look at the documents and look very carefully." She added that the administration would "take very seriously any suggestion that a foreign government may have passed information to the Iraqis" before the invasion and that "we will raise it with the Russian government."

WASHINGTON -- Russia has ordered the expulsion of two American military attaches working at the United States Embassy in Moscow, the State Department said yesterday. "I can confirm the two military attaches have been asked to leave the country," said Gonzo R. Gallegos, the department's director of press relations. "We object to these actions, but we'll comply with the Russian government's request." No one at the State Department would speculate about the reasons for the expulsions, although the United States has reportedly expelled a handful of Russians in recent years in little-noticed diplomatic dust-ups.

Summers have been a politically hazardous time in Moscow ever since the Soviet system began collapsing.Whenever Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on vacation, a perceptible power vacuum soon developed. There were rumors of dissension in the leadership, speculation about opposition plots. When a coup attempt finally was staged against him, it came during his summer vacation.Much has changed in Moscow in the past two years. But it looked like old times again last weekend when Russia's Central Bank suddenly declared all pre-1993 ruble notes invalid, plunging the country into panic.

Sen. Ben Cardin is scheduled to meet Thursday with the family of a Russian lawyer whose death sparked an international outcry over human rights in that country, renewing focus on a controversy that has complicated U.S.-Russian relations at a sensitive time. The meeting with the widow, mother and son of Sergei Magnitsky — who died in a Russian jail in 2009 after exposing corruption in the Russian government — comes just days after the State Department released a list of Russian officials barred from obtaining U.S. visas over alleged human rights abuses.

A STABLE RUBLE and contained inflation were long among the chief achievements of Boris N. Yeltsin's six years as post-Communist Russia's first president.Just a month ago, he used those conditions as his most potent arguments for foreign loans and credits -- and received a $22.6 billion package that was to assure economic stability. Now, the bubble has burst.Despite its vast oil reserves and other natural riches, Russia remains an insignificant player in the world's economy. Thus, the most serious impact of Monday's 34 percent devaluation of the ruble (and the effective default on billions in debt)

MOSCOW - Thousands of Russian troops scoured the southern republic of Ingushetia yesterday for Chechen rebels suspected of overnight attacks that killed 57 people and burned several Russian government buildings. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said those responsible for the attacks, which began late Monday night and lasted into early yesterday morning, should be "found and destroyed." "Those whom it is possible to take alive we should hand over to the courts," Putin said. The attacks, the largest rebel operation in the Ingush region since war between separatists and Moscow erupted in Chechnya a decade ago, was another blow to Putin's claim that Russian forces were in control of the separatist region.

TOKYO -- The Japanese government plans to offer Shinkansen bullet train technology in assisting Russia's planned improvement to its national railway networks, including the Trans-Siberian Railway, government sources said. The Tokyo government will work out concrete details of the assistance program by autumn, establishing a working group of government officials and corporations from both countries, they said. By offering railway technology to Russia, the government hopes to expand business opportunities for Japanese firms in the rapidly emerging economy, the sources said.

MOSCOW -- The European Court of Human Rights ruled yesterday that Russian forces were responsible for the summary executions of a pregnant Chechen, her year-old son and three other family members during a military operation in 2000 that rights groups have called one of the worst massacres in the separatist conflict in Chechnya. At least 60 Chechen civilians were killed Feb. 5, 2000, during a mop-up operation by Russian forces in a suburb of Grozny, Chechnya's capital, days after Russian troops retook the city.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States would seek clarification from Russia about an American military report that it had helped pass information to Iraq before the 2003 invasion, but she declined to make any specific allegations. "I don't have any reason to doubt or confirm the report at this point," Rice said on Fox News Sunday. "I do think we have to look at the documents and look very carefully." She added that the administration would "take very seriously any suggestion that a foreign government may have passed information to the Iraqis" before the invasion and that "we will raise it with the Russian government."

THE RUSSIAN government has just finished prosecuting what amounts to a blasphemy case. The defendants were the director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Center and the curator of an exhibit there entitled, "Caution: Religion!" Mr. Sakharov, the great physicist-dissident of the closing decades of the Soviet era, was one of those liberal-minded people who spoke out, at considerable cost to himself, in defense of free speech, artistic expression and freedom of religion. Life (especially life in Russia)

MOSCOW - Yukos, Russia's largest oil company, filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court in Houston yesterday in an attempt to prevent the Russian government from auctioning off its core assets this weekend. Yukos hopes the filing might force the Kremlin into arbitration over what many analysts say is a politically motivated campaign to bring down the company and its billionaire founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The company also asked for a temporary restraining order to block Sunday's auction of its main oil-pumping division, Yuganskneftegaz.

MOSCOW - Thousands of Russian troops scoured the southern republic of Ingushetia yesterday for Chechen rebels suspected of overnight attacks that killed 57 people and burned several Russian government buildings. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said those responsible for the attacks, which began late Monday night and lasted into early yesterday morning, should be "found and destroyed." "Those whom it is possible to take alive we should hand over to the courts," Putin said. The attacks, the largest rebel operation in the Ingush region since war between separatists and Moscow erupted in Chechnya a decade ago, was another blow to Putin's claim that Russian forces were in control of the separatist region.

MOSCOW -- The European Court of Human Rights ruled yesterday that Russian forces were responsible for the summary executions of a pregnant Chechen, her year-old son and three other family members during a military operation in 2000 that rights groups have called one of the worst massacres in the separatist conflict in Chechnya. At least 60 Chechen civilians were killed Feb. 5, 2000, during a mop-up operation by Russian forces in a suburb of Grozny, Chechnya's capital, days after Russian troops retook the city.

The carnage that ended with the capture of Sukhumi by Abkhazian separatists is terrible news for the young Republic of Georgia and a personal disaster for its leader, Eduard A. Shevardnadze.He not only personally led the effort to rout the secessionists but, at the last minute, appealed to Moscow in an effort to stop the Abkhazian juggernaut. Mr. Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, failed on both counts. Whether he can now survive Georgia's brutal political battles is questionable.

SLEPTSOVSK, Russia - The Russian government will ask thousands of Chechens today to map the future of their small, strongly independent republic through a constitutional referendum. But Vakha Shokarov can't summon the will to vote. The body of his son, Murat, 31, turned up at a city morgue last month, three weeks after Russian authorities whisked him away in a raid. The body had been dismembered and blackened with a blowtorch. His other son, Vicit, 37, vanished after he asked police about Murat's disappearance.

IF THE United States takes control of Iraq, it will go a long way toward ensuring a steady supply of oil to American buyers for decades to come. Not only would Iraq's own vast resources become available, but, as we have argued before, Saudi Arabia would be much less likely to try to stand up to Washington, and the prospect of completely secure access to Caspian Sea oil, by way of Iran, would also become a possibility. That is a long-term view, though. In the short term, expect considerable turbulence.