Hours before the cessation of hostilities offered by President Boris Yeltsin yesterday, Russian forces lost 28 killed and 75 wounded according to official reports. Most Russian losses occurred when Chechen fighters ambushed a military convoy near Vedeno. The Chechen resistance also struck in Grozny. Today,... MORE

Interviewed on Georgian television March 27 for the first time since the outbreak of armed conflict in 1992, Abkhaz president Vladislav Ardzinba reaffirmed the familiar demands for recognition of Abkhazia as a state and for "good neighborly" relations with Georgia in a confederal arrangement. Praising... MORE

Russian television (RTR)

Ukrainian justice minister Sergei Holovaty has dismissed the appeal of the Crimean Supreme Soviet asking that guarantees of Crimean autonomy be written into the Ukrainian-Russian Friendship Treaty. Holovaty said Ukraine is quite capable of guaranteeing Crimean autonomy on its own. First and foremost, however, Ukraine... MORE

The defense minister of Cyprus described several days of talks in Moscow as very successful March 26 and suggested that they would open the door to a broader partnership between the two countries. On March 21 Costas Eliades signed an agreement on military-technical cooperation with... MORE

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov yesterday denied any linkage between NATO enlargement and CIS integration. "Integration between Russia and other CIS countries is not an answer to anything, but an objective process that will take place, whether others like it or not," he said. (Interfax,... MORE

The director of Rosvooruzheniye, the Russian state arms trading company, said yesterday that Russia has orders for arms deals in 1996 that total more than $7 billion. If that figure is accurate, it would represent a significant jump in Russian earnings from arms sales. Kremlin... MORE

Russian foreign trade minister Oleg Davydov, just back from a six-day visit to Tripoli, declared yesterday that Moscow will pursue extensive trade relations with Libya. He also said that Russia would lobby to win a more favorable hearing in the UN Security Council for Libya,... MORE

Former first deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais says that a Communist victory in June's presidential election will be bad news for the economy and the population, but predicts that

A delegation headed by Arkady Volsky, a leading Russian industrialist, yesterday presented to Japanese business leaders attending a three-day forum in Tokyo a long-range program of development for the Russian Far East. The major goals of the program, which is to unfold in three stages... MORE