Viktor Chernomyrdin, newly reappointed as prime minister, told the Russian cabinet this morning that Yeltsin had instructed him to form a new government. He said the composition of the new team would be announced within days. (Itar-Tass, July 5) Yesterday, the Communist speaker of the... MORE

Financial markets responded jubilantly to Yeltsin's victory in Moscow yesterday, with share prices reaching record highs. There are strong expectations of a surge in foreign investment but, in view of the July 4 holiday in the United States, the response on foreign exchanges has so... MORE

The final official results of Russia's presidential election will not be published until July 9, but preliminary results announced yesterday gave Boris Yeltsin 53.7 percent of the vote to Gennady Zyuganov's 40.4 percent, with 4.9 percent voting against both candidates. At 68.7 percent of registered... MORE

Official celebrations marking the adoption of Ukraine's new constitution were postponed today because of a tragic train accident, but already the event appears to be having a calming influence on previously tense relations between the central authorities and Ukraine's only autonomous republic, Crimea. Ukrainian justice... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has sent U.S. president Bill Clinton a message denouncing Estonia and Latvia for allegedly claiming Russian territories, restricting the use of the Russian language, depriving the "Russian-speaking population" of citizenship, "persecuting the Russian Orthodox church," and other "mass-scale, gross violations of... MORE

At a Moscow briefing yesterday, Russia's minister for CIS cooperation Valery Serov called for state financial support for Russian exports to CIS countries. The Russian government may introduce subsidies and preferential credits to exporters "in order to support Russian industry and secure the CIS markets... MORE

Zyuganov campaign officials complained yet again yesterday about media bias, accusing Russia's main TV channel, ORT, of refusing to run a campaign advertisement that raised the question of campaign fraud. The Zyuganov team said the channel's action was "a serious violation" of election law. ORT... MORE

Military and civilian defense experts, operating under the leadership of acting Russian defense minister Mikhail Kolesnikov and first deputy defense minister Andrei Kokoshin, are reported to have completed work on an array of documents that present various choices for future Russian military reform and development... MORE

Yesterday was a pre-election "cooling-off period" in Russia, and all campaigning was officially banned. Yeltsin was kept out of the public eye by sickness, and his Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov canceled a planned press conference, saying he did not want to be accused of breaking... MORE

As an apparently weakened Boris Yeltsin stayed out of the public eye yesterday, Aleksandr Lebed, the Kremlin's recently arrived security dynamo, placed a mind-boggling array of Russia's most intractable problems under his national security purview and suggested that the president would give him carte-blanche to... MORE