The Tsarnaev family's connection with Russia is complex because of the intricate patchwork of ethnicities that comprises Russia and the former Soviet Union.
The last successful interplanetary mission for the program was in 1988 when Russia was still the Soviet Union.
FORBES: Medvedev: Engineers Behind Russia's Failed Mars Probe Could Face Prosecution
But Kosovo's few Serb leaders with the nerve to stay behind now seem likely to spurn the council, largely because western forces (plus a small number from Russia and the former Soviet Union) seem unable, so far, to stem a steady wave of revenge killings by Albanians.
Out of 19 attempted missions, Russia and the former Soviet Union have had only a few partial successes.
This Kosovar tycoon made his fortune as a builder in Russia and the former Soviet Union and has plastered Kosovo with posters of the Kremlin and other buildings he worked on, stating how many Kosovars he employed on each.
Businessmen who came to be known as oligarchs amassed massive wealth and political influence in the 1990s during the privatization of Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union.
CNN: Putin foe, exiled Russian oligarch found dead in UK home
The case raised a public curtain on the world of Russia's oligarchs, those who amassed massive wealth and political influence in the 1990s during the privatization of Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union.
CNN: Putin foe, exiled Russian oligarch found dead in UK home
Although none of these schemes is likely to come to anything, they all help to distract attention from the central point: Russia agreed to take on the Soviet Union's liabilities in return for acquiring its assets.
The oil, competition with Russia for influence in the former Soviet Union, plus Azerbaijan's strategic location, might suggest that America and the European Union should be content with Mr Aliev and the stability he seems to offer.
Charlotte Hobson is the author of Black Earth City, which describes life in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Russia of key ports and cut the size of its fleet.
Two decades ago the breakup of the Soviet Union left Russia's defense industry on the verge of collapse.
She spoke for many hours about her life and fate in the small Caucasus republic that has shaped much of what has happened in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIST: The testimony of a murdered human-rights campaigner
Legislator Vladimir Ryzhkov agrees Russia today is not the Soviet Union, under which Party officials decided even such matters as whether to allow husbands and wives to divorce.
Many of the known thefts or attempted thefts of the most dangerous nuclear materials have taken place in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
As the foreign-ministry document asserts, Russia needs to consolidate the former Soviet space by, for example, pushing the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Most such cases have involved material filched from ill-guarded sites in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIST: Preventing nuclear trafficking is easier than policing it
Pot 2 comprises three-time champions Germany, 1968 winners Italy, England and Russia -- who as the Soviet Union won the first tournament held in 1960.
Putin's promise to scrap visas was seen as crucial to his country's prospects of winning the vote as nationals of almost all countries outside the former Soviet Union require the paperwork to visit Russia.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia -- the first time Russia sent troops abroad to fight since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Indeed, no bilateral strategic arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union or Russia has ever been ratified during a lame duck session.
Since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has had only three presidents, including Medvedev, now up for re-election if he chooses to run.
What the Justice Department's 1996 memorandum on this issue fails to point out is that neither the United States, the Soviet Union nor Russia is a party to this 1978 convention--and that in fact 90 percent of the world's states have also refused to sign it.
Kyrgyzstan had invited Russia to station attack aircraft at an airbase on its territory - the first time Russia had opened a foreign military base since the end of the Soviet Union.
BBC: NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Military rivalry in Kyrgyzstan
He pioneered the oil trade with Russia, bartering drill pipe, petrochemicals and engineering services to the Soviet Union in exchange for crude.
Even without the fall of the Berlin Wall, and under Mikhail Gorbachev's new management, the Soviet Union would have struggled in vain (Russia struggles still) to adapt this behemoth to the information age and the microchip.
In April, almost 20 years after the Soviet Union disintegrated, Russia agreed to demarcate its land (though not its sea) border with Ukraine.
Some of their radars are not even in Russia, due to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the satellites in their warning network are starting to fail.
As Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union move their economies away from the inefficient autarky of the Soviet era towards a more efficient integration with the world economy, considerations of trade and investment will prevail over other forces.
The sale of the Mistrals is by far the most prominent example, but present-day Russia is far more open to foreign defense technology than was the Soviet Union which, as the articles state, had a standing policy of manufacturing all of its own weapons systems.
应用推荐