The new Moldovan government began working today after having been approved by parliament and taken the oath before the new president, Petru Lucinschi. (Basapress, Flux, January 27-28) The parliamentary majority left Lucinschi no option but to retain about half of the ministers of Andrei Sangheli's... MORE

The Council of Defense Ministers of CIS member countries held a special, closed-door session on January 28 at the CIS Military Cooperation Headquarters in Moscow. Six countries sent their ministers while four others sent officers below ministerial rank. Moldova and Turkmenistan did not attend. The... MORE

Maskhadov has started to put his government team together. Running-mate Vakha Arsanov will be vice president. The choice for prime minister is not yet known, but Movladi Udugov, the defeated presidential candidate who called on his supporters in the last days of the election to... MORE

Retired Gen. Lev Rokhlin, the influential chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee, has once again stated publicly that he does not believe it would be to Russia's advantage to ratify the START II strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty in its present form. He reasons... MORE

Russian ambassadors to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian self-rule areas gathered in Amman on January 28 to meet with Russian deputy foreign minister Viktor Posuvalyuk. The meeting was portrayed as part of an effort to coordinate Russian policy and to raise Moscow's... MORE

A Russian major and an enlisted man of the 201st motor-rifle division were shot and critically wounded in Dushanbe yesterday. The attack follows the killing of a captain who was "rendering practical assistance" to the same division as a representative of Siberian Cossacks in contact... MORE

Chechen president-elect Maskhadov says that winning recognition from the international community is one of his most important tasks. "We realize the West will not simply open its doors to us, ...but we shall win this fight, just as we won the war," Maskhadov says. "The... MORE

Contrary to his earlier assertion, Aleksandr Lebed is not going to the World Economic Forum that opens in Davos today. Instead, Russia's former security supremo is to visit France. In Lebed's absence, the focus of attention in Davos seems likely to fall on Nikolai Kovalev,... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has rejected a Duma bill, approved in December, that calls for Russia unilaterally to move toward ending its participation in UN sanctions against Iraq. According to a Kremlin spokesman, Yeltsin said that the bill is contrary to Russia's Constitution and its... MORE

Following a meeting with two Russian diplomats in Athens yesterday, Greece's foreign minister thanked Moscow for involving itself in the dispute over Cyprus, and, in a swipe at the U.S., said that the UN should play the main role in resolving differences on the island.... MORE