A top U.S. military commander said yesterday that Russian participation in NATO-led peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia had helped the Russian and U.S. militaries get to know each better and could help allay Moscow's concerns about NATO enlargement. Gen. George Joulwan, the supreme allied... MORE

The Russian Duma has ordered an investigation into whether parliament can oust President Boris Yeltsin from office on health grounds. Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev told Itar-Tass this morning that the constitution is vague and that the Duma's legal department has been instructed to investigate the... MORE

Schools across Russia failed to open yesterday after the mid-winter holiday as teachers went on strike to demand their unpaid wages. Some have not been paid for as long as nine months. In Moscow, strikers picketed the Russian government building. But schools in the capital... MORE

Russia will take back the 10 kilos of highly enriched uranium from a Georgian research institute in February or March, according to Russian nuclear energy minister Viktor Mikhailov. He said that the necessary negotiations were "at the bureaucratic stage." Mikhailov estimated that the operation would... MORE

Russia continues to design new nuclear weapons, although it has given up all nuclear tests, which were once thought to be absolutely necessary in weapons development. Russian nuclear energy minister Viktor Mikhailov said yesterday that Russian weapons designers were now using computer modeling and laboratory... MORE

An IMF mission is due to arrive in Moscow today. On the basis of its findings, the Fund will decide whether to continue monthly payments of its $10.2 billion extended loan to Russia. (Itar-Tass, January 13) Russia received eight tranches in 1996. The latest, amounting... MORE

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan, and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan held a regular summit of the Central Asian Economic Union (CAEU) in Bishkek on January 9-10. The presidents signed a treaty on "eternal friendship," envisaging both concerted policies on regional and... MORE

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council head, Volodymyr Horbulin, has conferred with top NATO leaders and the ambassadors of member countries at allied headquarters in Brussels on the draft document of a "special partnership" between NATO and Ukraine. Horbulin stated that "rapprochement with NATO represents... MORE

Russia's Gazprom has agreed to sell 23 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Ukraine in 1997, and to allow the transit of up to 25 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to Ukraine through Russian pipelines. Gazprom in turn plans to... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin's office and the Executive Secretary of the CIS, Ivan Korotchenya, announced in separate statements over the weekend that the planned CIS summit is being "tentatively" rescheduled for January 29-31. The event, intended to mark the fifth anniversary of the CIS, had... MORE