THOUSANDS MARK VICTORY DAY IN MOSCOW.

Russia marked the fifty-third anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe on May 9 with a military parade across Red Square and a big alternative rally by the left-wing opposition outside the Lubyanka, headquarters of the secret police. According to police, some six or seven thousand people took part in the alternative demonstration. Organizers, however, claimed the number was far higher. Demonstrators carried Soviet flags along with portraits of Lenin and Stalin and called for the resignation of President Yeltsin and the re-establishment of Soviet power. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told the crowd that the People’s Patriotic Union — the alliance of Communists and nationalists — is planning a national day of protest in early October to call for Yeltsin’s resignation and to express no confidence in Kirienko’s “provisional government.” His words were apparently intended to recall Bolshevik slogans on the eve of October 1917 Revolution. (RIA Novosti, May 9)

MOSCOW REFUSES TO BACK SANCTIONS AGAINST BELGRADE.