Three opinion polls published in Moscow over the weekend show incumbent President Boris Yeltsin now slightly ahead of Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov. The three new polls give Yeltsin leads over Zyuganov ranging from 0.5 percentage points to four percentage points. (Reuters, May 13) Yeltsin Upbeat... MORE

The weekend brought sharply conflicting signals from President Boris Yeltsin and Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky over whether or not they will forge an alliance in the presidential election. Yeltsin, swinging through Russia on a highly successful campaign trip, was upbeat. "We are uniting!" he told... MORE

Later that same day, Yavlinsky poured cold water on the idea, saying "I have neither the intention nor the desire to join the presidential team." Yavlinsky dismissed Yeltsin's statement as "a publicity stunt," saying the president "has no reason to make such statements except for... MORE

According to presidential candidate Aleksandr Lebed, Yavlinsky has for the past four months been negotiating with Lebed and Fedorov over a "third force" electoral alliance. At the same time, according to sources in the presidential administration, the Yavlinsky team was putting out feelers to the... MORE

Meeting with Yabloko supporters in St. Petersburg over the weekend, party leader Grigory Yavlinsky announced a two-year program which was immediately dubbed the "700-day plan" (in reference to the "500-day plan" discussed in the last weeks of the Soviet Union, of which Yavlinsky was one... MORE

At a press conference in Moscow yesterday, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called the Russian media "a one-man show" and said they were heavily biased in favor of incumbent President Boris Yeltsin. Appealing to the press to report the presidential campaign objectively, Gorbachev said there... MORE

Incumbent Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was officially registered Sunday as a candidate for the June 16 mayoral elections in the city of Moscow. Luzhkov is popular and is widely expected to be comfortably reelected. So far, he is the only registered candidate. Valery Shantsev, head of... MORE

In electoral campaign appearances May 10 and 11 on the lower Volga, President Boris Yeltsin reiterated his intention to visit Chechnya sometime before the June 16 presidential election in order to start negotiations. Declining for security reasons to name a date for the planned visit,... MORE

Yeltsin's insistence on Doku Zavgayev's participation is just one obstacle to talks. In Chechnya itself, Russian helicopters continued to strafe the district center Urus-Martan May 11-13, bringing the civilian casualty toll to 6 killed and more than 30 wounded, including a group of preschool children.... MORE

Returning yesterday from the Transcaucasus, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov stated that "the Foreign Ministry's main task now is to promote centripetal tendencies on the territory of the former Soviet Union." The context of Primakov's remarks left no doubt that Russia was the "center" he... MORE