President Boris Yeltsin, who is campaigning in the central Russian Republic of Bashkortostan, canceled a visit this morning to an oil-refinery in the republic's capital, Ufa. Aides denied that he was unwell. Presidential press secretary Sergei Medvedev said Yeltsin met Bashkortostan leaders early in the... MORE

A high-ranking Russian Foreign Ministry official said in Moscow yesterday that Russia could make large concessions on NATO enlargement but would categorically oppose extension of the alliance's military infrastructure to Russia's western borders. The diplomat also accused the United States of cynically protesting human rights... MORE

By virtue of a presidential decree, 12 Russian civil and military aviation industry leaders have pooled efforts to pursue improved design, production, and marketing of advanced Russian aircraft and arms. The new group -- called MAPO -- includes the MiG Design Bureau and the Kamov... MORE

A Russian Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Moscow intends to promote democracy in Cuba by aiding Havana in the implementation of economic reform. The official also said that Russia's relations with Cuba, as well as with other Latin American countries, are not aimed at... MORE

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman yesterday said that Moscow supports international efforts to settle the protracted crisis in Afghanistan. He added that Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov has appointed Aleksandr Oblov as his special envoy for matters related to Afghanistan. (Itar-Tass, May 29) Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Form... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma yesterday appointed Pavlo Lazarenko as prime minister in place of Yevhen Marchuk, whom Kuchma had forced to resign the preceding day. (See Monitor, May 28) Lazarenko, born in 1953 and, like Kuchma, a native of Dnepropetrovsk oblast, is a close political ally... MORE

The Kazakhstan-based Uighur cultural association and the East Turkestan Revolutionary Front made public yesterday an appeal to the governments of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to intercede and halt persecution of Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province. The province borders on the ex-Soviet Central Asian countries.... MORE

Parliamentary representatives from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan signed yesterday an agreement to set up an Interparliamentary Committee of the four countries, partners to the treaty on "deeper economic and humanitarian integration" signed March 29 by their presidents. The Interparliamentary Committee is supposed to work... MORE

Belarus Popular Front Chairman Zyanon Paznyak yesterday announced an initiative to create a Belarus Information Center in Poland in order to "inform international public opinion of the true political situation in Belarus." Paznyak left Belarus for Poland following the crackdown on Popular Front activists accused... MORE

Russia's Minister for Defense Industries, Zinovy Pak, has recommended that the Russian government quietly buy out previously privatized defense enterprises of strategic importance and also those that are monopolies in key areas of defense production. In an interview with the magazine Expert, Pak said that... MORE