Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma told western leaders at the Davos World Economic Forum that NATO should not admit Romania so long as Bucharest makes territorial claims on Ukraine. In a statement yesterday, Kuchma added that Romanian president Emil Constantinescu offered assurances that Bucharest will in... MORE

Marking the fifth anniversary of the CIS, the volume "CIS in Transformation: A Portrait" was officially issued in Moscow last week. Russian president Boris Yeltsin writes in the preface: "The creation of a single economic space is inconceivable without reliably protecting the CIS outer borders... MORE

Each week seems to bring announcements of new Russian arms sales abroad. On January 31 the director of the state-owned arms export company Rosvooruzhenie, Mikhail Timkin, said that so far this year his company had signed contracts for arms deals worth Òa little less than... MORE

The Yeltsin-Chirac meeting capped a period of several days during which NATO enlargement took center stage for Russian policy-makers. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin opened the latest round of jousting between Russia and the West on the issue during a visit to Davos, Switzerland. Addressing the... MORE

French president Jacques Chirac yesterday expressed his confidence that NATO and Russia could reach an agreement on NATO enlargement, possibly prior to the Western alliance's upcoming July summit in Madrid. Chirac made his remarks to reporters following a three-hour meeting with Russian president Boris Yeltsin... MORE

The Chechen authorities have issued the official results of last week's presidential elections. Aslan Maskhadov won 59.3 percent of the votes, Shamil Basaev got 23.5 percent, and former president Zelimkhan Yandarbiev finished with 10.1 percent. The remaining ten candidates polled 7.1 percent between them. President... MORE

Armenia announced over the weekend that it has completed the construction of a 55 kilometer, high-voltage power transmission line connecting the country's electrical power system with that of Iran. The 100 kilometer Iranian segment is due to be completed shortly. The link with Iran will... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin celebrated his 66th birthday quietly with his family on February 1. In the evening, he was joined by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, just back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, and chief aide Anatoli Chubais, who left for Davos the next... MORE

The Russian Defense Ministry abolished its reserve as of yesterday. This means that military personnel elected to political posts must choose between politics or the armed forces. In the past they have had it both ways: while serving in their elected post they were also... MORE

Should Turkey continue to threaten attacks on the Russian-built S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems sold to Cyprus, Russia might offer the Cypriots a top-secret system to protect them. An unnamed Russian Defense Ministry official said on January 31 that Russia might provide its ÒTumanÓ jamming system,... MORE