In a letter passed last week to North Korean President Kim Jong IL, Russian president Boris Yeltsin reportedly expressed Russia's support for a "peaceful, democratic reunification" of the two Koreas and said that Moscow would do everything in its power to assist that process. Yeltsin... MORE

According to an unnamed Defense Ministry source, Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev has denied a request from Gennady Zyuganov's Communist party election staff to be allowed to campaign among soldiers and military cadets. Zyuganov reportedly hoped to conduct meetings this month and next with students... MORE

Opinion polls published over the weekend found Zyuganov still in the lead with Yeltsin in second place. In a poll conducted April 4-10, the VTsIOM Russian Center for Public Opinion Research found that Zyuganov's support had risen to 26 percent, up one percentage point from... MORE

Ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has called on Russian president Boris Yeltsin to close Moscow's international Sheremetevo-2 airport between from May 1 to July 1. Zhirinovsky said the move was necessary to prevent "swindlers" leaving Russia and taking their savings to the West. (Interfax, April 12)... MORE

U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher last week outlined what Washington sees as the agenda for the April 19-20 G-7 summit in Moscow: agreement "on a concrete program to prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear materials;" an agreement on cooperation in disposing of plutonium no longer... MORE

The prime ministers of Latvia and Estonia, Andris Skele and Tiit Vahi, agreed yesterday on temporary regulations regarding the disputed demarcation lines and fishing zones in the Gulf of Riga. The compromise regulations, details of which were not immediately revealed, apparently allow both countries to... MORE

German defense minister Volker Ruehe declared in Romania April 12 that Bonn remains committed to NATO's eastward expansion. "We have a duty toward Europe which is to share our welfare and stability," he said. (Reuter, April 12) On the same day German foreign minister Klaus... MORE

Elections to the regional legislative assembly of Sverdlovsk oblast were held yesterday. Preliminary results show that the "Urals Renovation" Association led by Eduard Rossel came in first in voting for the lower house of the assembly, with 36.5 percent of the votes. Second with 15... MORE

Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who met with Boris Yeltsin April 9 in Moscow (see Monitor, April 10), was quoted in a Polish newspaper April 12 as suggesting that Yeltsin had accepted as inevitable NATO's role as a "pillar or base" of any future European security... MORE

U.S. officials, said to be lowering expectations before the April 19-20 nuclear security summit in Moscow, claimed April 12 that Moscow and Washington remain deadlocked on several key issues and that a major breakthrough at the summit is unlikely. According to one U.S. scientist, the... MORE