The French Embassy in Moscow has issued a visa to Aslan Maskhadov, chief-of-staff of the Chechen opposition, who has been invited to attend the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Maskhadov will travel on a new Russian passport "issued only a few... MORE

The 23 September visit to Moscow of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, political leader of the Chechen opposition, has been postponed until the end of the month, Chechen sources said. Yandarbiev had been expected to meet with Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed, and perhaps with Russian prime minister... MORE

The withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya resumed on September 21 after a ten-day break. Plans call for the withdrawal to be completed by mid-December. The exchange of prisoners is proceeding slowly. On September 22, the Chechen side exchanged 11 Russian prisoners-of-war for three Chechen... MORE

According to unconfirmed sources in the Russian military, Chechen opposition leaders Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and Aslan Maskhadov have repealed the Islamic criminal code introduced in Chechnya at the beginning of this month. The Chechen leaders reportedly acted to avoid the creation of blood feuds that could... MORE

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has expressed concern at recent assertions by high-ranking Russian officials that the Crimean port of Sevastopol does not constitute part of Ukraine but is "a Russian city." (Interfax, September 20) During the last ten days or so, Russia's... MORE

A ceasefire agreement, reflecting major gains by the opposition, went into effect yesterday in Tajikistan's Garm area, the main theater of military action in this war. Negotiated at the scene by Dushanbe's Security Council chief, Amirkul Azimov, with opposition commander Mirzohoja, the agreement provides that... MORE

Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev, accompanied by a large governmental delegation, conferred in Baku and Tbilisi with his counterparts, Haydar Aliev and Eduard Shevardnadze, on developing cooperation among the Transcaucasus and Central Asian states. The presidents focused on the transport of "early" Caspian oil and the... MORE

The Georgian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Kakha Chitaya, stated on national television that the parliament intends shortly to discuss revisions to the unratified 1994 agreements on the stationing of Russian troops in Georgia and joint protection of the Georgian-Turkish border. Georgia no longer needs... MORE

Russian Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed met with Viktor Chernomyrdin on September 18 to brief the prime minister on the results of his meetings with Chechen leaders the day before. The two men focused on the problem of forcibly held persons in Chechnya and the... MORE

Russia's Defense Ministry, which has long complained of being the worst financed of the country's "power ministries," made public some figures on September 17 that seemed to support its contention. According to the ministry's information service, the regular armed forces received only 4.4 percent of... MORE