The recently completed nuclear-powered battle cruiser Pyotr Veliky is heading for the Northern Fleet to finish its sea trials, a Russian naval spokesman announced yesterday. The ship has had a stormy history so far. It triggered an international incident when sailing past Latvia in the... MORE

The U.S. protested officially to Moscow yesterday over its "unacceptable" role in the espionage activities of Harold Nicholson, the 16-year CIA veteran arrested over the weekend for passing secret information to Russia. According to a State Department spokesman, U.S. deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin met for one hour on November 19, their first working meeting since Yeltsin's surgery. Chernomyrdin was at pains to stress that it was a "working" meeting and that Yeltsin was fully informed of all developments. Presidential spokesman... MORE

Authorities in the southern Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria have reacted with something like panic to last weekend's declaration of a "sovereign Republic of Balkaria." (See Monitor, November 19) Kabardino-Balkaria's parliament met yesterday in emergency session and dissolved the Council of the Balkar People, which was... MORE

The upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, has unanimously adopted a resolution "On Measures to Overcome the Consequences of the Ossetian-Ingush Conflict of October-November 1992." (Interfax, November 14) The resolution aims to resolve a territorial conflict between Ingushetia and neighboring North Ossetia... MORE

The Constitutional Court of Belarus yesterday began deliberations on a motion, signed by more than 70 parliamentary deputies, to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Aleksandr Lukashenko for multiple violations of the law. The parliamentary motion and the Court's deliberation on it are the first two... MORE

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry envoy for special assignments Volodymyr Vasilenko stated yesterday that Kiev hopes for Romanian recognition of Ukraine's territorial integrity following the election of Emil Constantinescu as Romanian president. Vasilenko noted that Constantinescu's campaign emphasized the goal of Romania's early accession to NATO and... MORE

Armenian opposition representatives yesterday charged at a news conference that the Constitutional Court "practically covers up the falsification of the presidential election returns" in its handling of the opposition's petition for a detailed review of those returns. The Court has declined to examine the protocols... MORE

Loti Kobalia, former commander of the late president Zviad Gamsakhurdia's paramilitary force, was sentenced to death yesterday by Georgia's Supreme Court on charges of high treason, banditry, and the commission of premeditated murders. The Court also sentenced former parliamentary deputies Jambul Bokuchava, Zviad Dzidziguri, and... MORE

Final results, issued today, of the November 17 first round of Moldova's presidential election show incumbent president Mircea Snegur with 39 percent of the votes cast, Parliament Chairman Petru Lucinschi with 28 percent, Prime Minister Andrei Sangheli and Communist leader Vladimir Voronin with 10 percent... MORE