Elections in the CIS countries are turning from an instrument of the people’s will into a convenient pretext for outside multilateral interference. This new environment is aimed at creating international legal conditions for changing a regime by challenging election results, claiming as illegitimate the existing constitutional procedures and provoking an acute political crisis.
Elections in the CIS countries are turning from an instrument of the people’s will into a convenient pretext for outside multilateral interference. This new environment is aimed at creating international legal conditions for changing a regime by challenging election results, claiming as illegitimate the existing constitutional procedures and provoking an acute political crisis.
When the Baltic countries entered NATO and the European Union a couple of years ago, many thought it was the end of the centuries-old "red line." Euro-Atlantic organizations had crossed into the former Russian and Soviet empires.
In September 2004, the Russian city of Novgorod hosted an international conference entitled Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Reality. Its organizers were the RIA Novosti news agency, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia in Global Affairs, and The Moscow Times.