Russia must need pin money.

According to Reuters, its anti-monopoly police are investigating Microsoft because supplies of XP have dried up and it thinks Microsoft violated its laws by cutting deliveries of the operating system to the country, both the shrink-wrapped kind and bundled in boxes.

It's also not thrilled with Microsoft's pricing policies.

The antitrust agency is quoted as saying, "Analysis of the market for various operating systems shows that the transfer to the new Windows Vista operating system is occurring while demand for the previous operating system, Windows XP, continues." It's supposed to consider the case on July 24.

Microsoft's Moscow office told the wire service it hadn't had any communication from the regulators.

Reuters says full-scale antitrust investigations were uncommon in Russia.

And here we thought the Russian government fancied Linux. According to Reuters it continues to order XP.