Sources at the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow is willing in principle to take back some 10 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that had been left in Georgia following the breakup of the USSR, but that "some complicated organizational and technical" problems remain to... MORE

Russian border guards have turned back a group of Abkhazian deputies who were seeking to cross the land border into Russia in order to fly from there to an "international meeting" in the US. Abkhazia's legislature issued an official protest against the Russian border guards'... MORE

Boris Yeltsin's doctors, who now admit that what was first described as a cold is in fact double pneumonia, said yesterday that the Russian president's condition was slightly improved. But chief Kremlin doctor Sergei Mironov said it was too early to say the crisis had... MORE

Tensions provoked by a Russian missile deal with Cyprus deepened over the weekend as both Washington and Moscow criticized the Turkish government for threatening military action against Cyprus as a possible response. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Tarasov told reporters on January 11 that Russia... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin is reported to have proposed that Russia and Belarus should hold a referendum on some kind of unification. Presidential aide Sergei Shakhrai had earlier said this would be a fitting response to NATO expansion. (BBC World Service, January 13) U.S.-NATO Talks.

Although the Clinton Administration attaches great importance to the signing of a "charter" agreement between Russia and NATO, top U.S. officials reportedly made clear on January 9 Washington's insistence that NATO proceed with enlargement this summer regardless of whether that agreement is finalized by then... MORE

The threat posed by oil slicks from a wrecked Russian tanker took on a new dimension over the weekend as Japanese emergency crews worked to prevent the oil from clogging the cooling systems of a complex of seaside nuclear reactors. Japanese nuclear energy officials said... MORE

Chechen Mufti Hajji Akhmad Kadyrov is to visit western Chechnya where two Russian Orthodox priests, kidnapped last week, are thought to be held captive by Chechen militants. (Itar-Tass, January 12) Kadyrov will appeal to local officials and Moslem clergymen for help in the search for... MORE

Arkady Volsky, the politically influential head of Russia's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, claims that Russia and Latvia are holding talks on the Russian purchase of its former naval base in Liepaja. Volsky told a news conference in Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad that it would be "inexcusable if... MORE

Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev yesterday told a Russian Duma delegation, headed by the Duma's Communist chairman Gennady Seleznev, that Azerbaijan's self interest determines its policy toward the CIS. Aliyev advised the Duma delegation -- which included ex-USSR prime minister Nikolay Ryzhkov, Aliyev's former colleague on... MORE