In a weekend broadcast to the nation, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma stated that good-neighborly relations with Russia are fundamental to Ukraine's foreign policy. Kuchma once again extended an invitation to Russian president Boris Yeltsin to visit Kiev for the long overdue signing of a bilateral... MORE

Valeri Mikhaylov, chairman of the Russian government's Defense Industry Department, said on December 12 that the proceeds from the sale of military equipment to China would be used to finance "the development of the newest types of armaments" for Russia's own military. Mikhaylov also suggested... MORE

Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin met in Moscow yesterday with a delegation of the Cossacks protesters. Viktor Dhevtsov and Aleksandr Korobeinikov, representing the Terek Cossacks, asked that this group of Cossacks be included in the state register of Cossack forces and in public order patrols.... MORE

In yet another indication of the growing importance attached by Moscow to relations with Beijing, Russian government sources indicated yesterday that Chinese premier Li Peng could be the first foreign leader to meet with Boris Yeltsin following the Russian president's expected return to the Kremlin... MORE

Some 1,500 Cossacks over the weekend blocked transport to and from the spa-town of Mineralnye vody in Russia's Stavropol krai, which borders on Chechnya. The Cossacks, who are demanding the right to set up armed self-defense units, sealed off the airport, blocked railway lines, and... MORE

Chechen foreign minister Kazbek Makhachev, Presidential Aide Akhmed Zakaev, and the secretary of Dagestan's Security Council, Magomet Tolboev, held talks on December 16 with Chechen field commander Salman Raduev, who is holding 22 Russian policemen hostage. Raduev says the policemen are prisoners-of-war, not hostages, and... MORE

President Saparmurad Niazov told a State Council session yesterday that the 1996 harvest was only 480,000 tons of grain and only 450,000 tons of raw cotton, instead of the planned 1 million tons and 1.4 million tons, respectively. Niazov called for "immediate solutions" by handing... MORE

On a four-day official visit to South Korea, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and Ukrainian economic ministers conferred with President Kim Young-Sam and other South Korean officials on ways to jump-start bilateral economic ties. The sides signed agreements on the promotion and protection of investments and... MORE

The first launch from the Svobodny launch site in the Far East has been put off from this month until early next year because the satellite is not ready. Svobodny was once a strategic missile base housing SS-11 ICBMs. In its new role it will... MORE

In an interview with a Russian daily published yesterday, Defense Minister Igor Rodionov said that funding shortfalls have left Russia's soldiery impoverished and humiliated. He warned that many military families were literally starving, and that some soldiers have been reduced to selling their blood in... MORE