The festival of workers' solidarity is being celebrated in Russia -- but with some differences. In Moscow, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has renamed it "Kindness Day" (Den dobra) and is treating Muscovites to a day's free travel on the metro, the BBC reported. The Communist party... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday denied that Moscow's exclusion from an international group observing the cease-fire in Lebanon represented a defeat for Russian diplomacy. At the same time the ministry continued to criticize the West for relegating it to the sidelines. An April 29 ministry statement... MORE

A Russian deputy foreign minister yesterday described the general purpose agreement on confidence-building in the border region -- signed April 26 by the leaders of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan -- as a de facto non-aggression pact. The agreement will lay the "basis for... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin renewed his attack on NATO enlargement in an interview published by the French magazine Politique Internationale. Yeltsin characterized the preservation and expansion of NATO as "an attempt to keep the foreign policy mechanisms and the mentality of 'Cold War' times." He... MORE

Testifying before Congress yesterday, the directors of the CIA and FBI warned that organized crime in Russia threatens political and economic reform there while posing ever more serious problems here in the United States for law enforcement agencies. According to FBI director Louis Freeh, Russian... MORE

Communist presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov met for half an hour yesterday with Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin to discuss the political and economic situation. A spokesman for the prime minister downplayed the significance of the meeting, saying it was "traditional" for Chernomyrdin to hold regular meetings... MORE

Communist deputy and chairman of the Duma Security Committee Viktor Ilyukhin warned a press conference yesterday that, if Zyuganov is elected president in June, Yeltsin may resort to force in an effort to prevent him taking up office. (Interfax, April 30) To prevent this, on... MORE

The Yeltsin team is said also to be mulling over various new legislative proposals, a move which the journalist Anna Ostapchuk attributes to a desire to make Yeltsin's candidacy more attractive to wavering voters. One variant would involve a referendum on restricting the president's wide... MORE

Estonia yesterday handed over at NATO headquarters in Brussels its discussion paper on NATO enlargement and Estonia's goals in seeking to join the alliance. Latvia and Lithuania handed in their discussion papers in mid-April during NATO secretary-general Javier Solana's visit to the Baltic states. The... MORE

Speaking at a conference yesterday in London, the hard-line first deputy commander of Russia's navy complained of the continued intrusion of foreign submarines into Russian waters and suggested Moscow might react more aggressively if the intrusions continued. Former Black Sea Fleet commander Igor Kasatonov also... MORE