ABSTRACT
Vast natural resources in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, combined with a well-educated, skilled labor force in all three countries, promise huge potential for the countries of the northern Commonwealth of Independent States. Yet today that potential has been compromised by poverty, armed conflict, and ecological disaster. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl deeply affected Ukraine, as well as Belarus and the Russian Federation. Fighting in the Caucasus Mountains—war in Chechnya and conflict between Ingushetia and North Ossetia—imposed further hardships on the Russian Federation, which in mid-1998 lapsed into the most serious political and economic crisis since the transition began.
