KOZYREV CRITICIZES SERBS AND NATO.

Russian foreign minister AndreiKozyrev denounced the hostage-taking by Bosnian Serbs as “barbarism”but simultaneously criticized NATO’s bombing of the Bosnian Serbpositions and called for a lifting of sanctions against Belgrade,Itar-Tass reported May 29. The day before, Yeltsin’s press spokesmansaid that the NATO airstrikes had only made the situation worse andthat now the West was turning to Russia for assistance. Before meetingwith the five-nation Contact Group in the Hague, Kozyrev said thatwithdrawal of UN peacekeepers would be “counterproductive.” After thatmeeting, he said that everyone had agreed to pursue a diplomaticsolution to the crisis. On May 28, Russian television reported that theSerbs had released Russian hostages, but that some Russian peacekeepershad refused to go, out of solidarity with their UN colleagues. (TheSerbs continue to hold 55 Ukrainian peacekeepers.)

Chechen War Expands Into The Mountains.