On a maiden tour of post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe, NATO's new secretary-general Javier Solana visited Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania April 16-18 and conferred with the three countries' presidents and their governmental and parliamentary leaders. Solana did not provide conclusive answers to the leaders' urgent... MORE

Only weeks after Washington and Moscow had apparently resolved a conflict over barriers to the import of U.S. chicken parts, Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday ordered his government to introduce import tariffs on a range of food products as of July 1. (Financial Times, April... MORE

The Russian government plans to buy back some of the shares in leading industrial enterprises that it sold in last autumn's controversial "shares for loans" auctions. At issue are said to be the state's holding in three of Russia's leading oil companies and in Norilsk... MORE

Russian military sources today upped to "more than 70" and even "more than 90" the number of Russian soldiers killed in the devastating Chechen ambush of a Russian military column near Shatoi (see Monitor, April 18). The initial reports had spoken of 53 killed. The... MORE

Claiming that Russian military operations in the Caucasus are among the most bloody that its staff have witnessed anywhere in the world, an international medical group has urged G-7 leaders to press Russia to stop the carnage in Chechnya. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) yesterday released... MORE

Expanding on a proposal briefly alluded to earlier by Boris Yeltsin, a Russian presidential advisor has called for the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe and hinted that its creation could ease Moscow's opposition to NATO enlargement. The timing of... MORE

On the eve of the nuclear security summit, Russia and Canada yesterday signed a memorandum on cooperation in the peaceful exploitation of nuclear energy. The document calls for more active information exchanges and contacts between scientists from the two countries. (Itar-Tass, April 18) Turbulent Start... MORE

As world leaders began arriving in Moscow yesterday for the long-awaited G-7 nuclear security summit, it was apparent that the forum's participants, already much criticized for failing to tackle a number of tough nuclear safety and environmental problems, were also likely to become embroiled in... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry intensified its criticism of Israeli retaliatory attacks on Lebanon yesterday, describing them as a "path to nowhere" that "seriously endangers the peace process." (Reuter, April 18) Treading Water in the Far East?

An Australian report, issued April 17, said that Russia's efforts to play a greater role in the booming Asia-Pacific region depend upon a revitalization and restructuring of its stagnant Far Eastern economy. One day later, the governor of Russia's Maritime krai criticized a Far Eastern... MORE