Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and the parliament's socialist chairman Oleksandr Moroz yesterday advanced conflicting interpretations of the validity of the existing constitutional agreement. Moroz initiated the controversy by telling the parliament yesterday that the constitutional agreement has expired as of June 8, and that Ukraine's... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry officially expressed its disappointment yesterday over China's June 8 underground nuclear test. A ministry spokesman said that Boris Yeltsin had urged Chinese leaders during an April visit to Beijing not to undertake any actions that might endanger the Geneva international talks on... MORE

An international oil consortium comprised of companies from the U.S., Japan, and Russia announced the signing of a $15 billion deal June 10 to begin work on the Sakhalin-1 project. The deal involves the development of three fields off Sakhalin Island in the Pacific that... MORE

"The closer the elections, the greater the speculation about the possibility of fraud," Izvestiya noted June 8. Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov told a television interviewer last night that he will accept the official results only after double-checking them against those of the monitors deployed... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said in Voronezh yesterday that -- assuming Boris Yeltsin is reelected -- the government will approve by the end of the year a program boosting military-technical cooperation with foreign states. Chernomyrdin described the program as a key element in the... MORE

Russian Foreign Ministry chief spokesman Grigory Karasin and other senior officials yesterday disavowed Zavgaev's and the Grozny government's public attacks on Guldimann and its demands for his recall from Chechnya. The Moscow officials assessed Guldimann's performance as "positive on the whole" and stressed that Grozny... MORE

A recent directive affecting some ninety diplomats of retirement age could be setting the stage for a major housecleaning atop Russia's diplomatic establishment. According to sources within the Foreign Ministry, the directive instructs the affected personnel, many of whom are described as occupants of senior... MORE

The Association of Russian Banks (ARB), which represents Russia's commercial banks, will protest Monday's decision by the Central Bank of Russia to raise the level of reserves which lending institutions are required to maintain. According to Vladimir Gusinsky, chairman of the MOST banking group and... MORE

The Nazran protocols stipulate the withdrawal of Russian troops "temporarily stationed" in Chechnya, leaving a loophole for the stay of those Russian forces which Moscow defines as "permanently stationed." Russia's Defense Ministry announced yesterday that it is drawing up plans for the withdrawal of part... MORE

The Chechen delegation and OSCE mission staff, returning under Russian escort from the Nazran talks, were attacked twice yesterday in the vicinity of Russian checkpoints. In each incident the motorcade was hit by three remote-controlled mines. The blasts wounded seven persons, mostly bystanders, and damaged... MORE