Russia's finance minister Vladimir Panskov revealed yesterday that President Boris Yeltsin is planning to issue a decree restricting the ability of Russian enterprises to withdraw cash from their bank accounts for purposes other than paying wages and covering business travel expenses. (Financial Times, March 22)... MORE

Russia's largest privatized oil company, LukOil, is negotiating with the Los Angeles-based Arco oil group. (Financial Times, March 21) Vagit Alekperov, president of LukOil, said the aim is to create an alliance enabling LukOil, which claims reserves equal to those of Royal Dutch-Shell but has... MORE

The first issue of the English-language weekly, The Baltic Times, came out in Riga yesterday. The newspaper results from the merger of two predecessors in Tallinn and Riga. It covers politics, business, and culture and is planed to be sold in all three Baltic states.... MORE

Speaking yesterday in St. Petersburg, Mikhail Gorbachev officially announced his intention of running for president. (Russian Television, March 21) This will be the former Soviet president's first experience of running for a democratically elected office. Russia to Open Bond Market to Foreign Investors.

Russia will later this month offer $500 million of its state bonds (GKO) to foreign investors. (Financial Times, March 22) Purchase of the high-yielding treasury bills has until now been restricted to the domestic market. If the sale goes ahead successfully, it will increase the... MORE

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has signed a resolution cutting oil export duties from ECU 20 to ECU 10 as of April 1, together with a simultaneous recalculation of basic excise duty rates and an increase in charges for pipeline transportation of oil, Deputy Economics Minister... MORE

In what appears to be an implicit rebuke to First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, who has been heading the Kremlin-based presidential election headquarters, Yeltsin announced yesterday that he is taking personal control of his campaign for re-election and instructing his chief aide, Viktor Ilyushin,... MORE

The Russian command in Chechnya reported losing at least 28 killed and at least 86 wounded in the 24-hour period up to this morning. It was an unusual momentary departure from the information blackout imposed by the Russian military since the beginning of its current... MORE

Another round of negotiations on transit tariffs for Russian oil through Ukraine's Druzhba pipeline broke down yesterday in Kiev. Russia's Fuel and Power Ministry initially accepted, then repudiated a deal on a three-tiered tariff pegged to the amounts of oil pumped. The oil flow to... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday protested a March 20 resolution by the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly that criticized Russian actions in Chechnya. (See Monitor, March 21) A ministry spokesman expressed "amazement" at the resolution for what he suggested was the moral equivalence it assigned to... MORE