RUSSIANS IN BALTIC REGION HIT BY RUSSIA’S CRISIS.

Latvia’s Foreign Ministry is appealing to Russia to pay the pensions of tens of thousands of Russian military veterans and other retirees who reside in Latvia as Russian citizens. In Estonia, parliamentary deputies representing Russian parties are directing similar appeals to the Russian Duma. Moscow has stopped disbursing the pensions due to Russia’s financial crisis. Russia’s Foreign Affairs and Finance Ministries and the Russian embassies in Riga and Tallinn are unable to give any specific answer to the appeals. The Duma’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, General Valentin Varennikov, blamed “those who destroyed the USSR” for the plight of Russian military retirees in the Baltic states. The retired four-star General Varennikov had supported the 1991 communist putsch.

In Lithuania, Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis expressed concern about the Russian Baltic Fleet command’s public announcement that it has food reserves for only forty days and no funds for feeding the troops beyond then. Because a large part of the fleet–and ground forces subordinated to it–are based in the Kaliningrad region, Landsbergis appealed to Western countries to ask Russia to choose between either accepting food aid for the troops, or withdrawing them from Kaliningrad region to Russia proper. (BNS, Radio Riga, Itar-Tass, Radio Russia, September 4-7)

IMF APPROVES MASSIVE CREDIT PROGRAM TO UKRAINE.