Georgia's defense minister, Lt. General Vardiko Nadibaidze yesterday publicly thanked President Eduard Shevardnadze for accepting his assurances that he had nothing to do with an alleged plot to keep Pavel Grachev in the post of Russia's defense minister, as charged by Aleksandr Lebed following Grachev's... MORE

Opposition guerrillas yesterday killed eight Tajik government soldiers and wounded three in an attack in the Kofarnikhon district, some 30 kilometers east of Dushanbe. Opposition forces continually infiltrate that district despite government operations to clean it out. Two days earlier an opposition attack had wounded... MORE

The Lithuanian parliament yesterday adopted by a large majority a constitutional amendment allowing land sales to foreigners under clearly defined conditions. Under the amendment, Lithuanian nonagricultural land may be bought in full ownership by citizens and business firms of countries which are members of the... MORE

Russia's Central Bank (CBR) has abandoned its threat to appeal to the courts the Russian government demand that it hand over 5 trillion rubles of its profits to help cover Yeltsin's pre-election spending promises. CBR chairman Sergei Dubinin is said to have been angered less... MORE

Amid the crescendo of tall timber being felled in the Kremlin, the demotion of Boris Yeltsin's National Security Advisor, Yuri Baturin, has been little noted. Baturin, who had occupied that post since January 1994, was replaced June 18 by Aleksandr Lebed and reduced in status... MORE

The sackings elicited an enthusiastic response from most of the members of Russia's democratic camp, such as former premier Yegor Gaidar. Commentators pointed out that the way was now open for Yeltsin to strike an electoral deal with Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, since the three... MORE

Among the decisions reached at yesterday's Security Council meeting was one which could carry significant consequences for Russia's Defense Ministry. Boris Yeltsin reportedly lambasted top military officials for financial abuses that he said had cost the armed forces more than 300 billion rubles. Yeltsin described... MORE

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov has restated Russia's claim to great power status and rejected the views of those who argue that Moscow's domestic weakness compels it to assume a non-assertive diplomatic posture. In wide-ranging remarks on the contours of Russian foreign policy made in... MORE

NATO secretary-general Javier Solana stated in Warsaw yesterday that the Western alliance has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons on the territories of new Eastern European members states. The remark, which addresses one of Moscow's objections to NATO enlargement (see below), was made during a... MORE

Lithuania's chief delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Algirdas Gricius yesterday assessed Moscow's reported nomination of Mechislav Sienkevich to be ambassador to Lithuania as indicating that "Russia is not interested in good relations with Lithuania." Gricius cited Russian press articles describing... MORE