Russian president Boris Yeltsin February 21 appointed Vice Admiral Viktor Kravchenko commander of Russia's share of the Black Sea Fleet. Kravchenko, a submariner, served with the Black Sea Fleet from 1968 to 1991, then became First Deputy Commander of Russia's Baltic Fleet. Kravchenko's Ukrainian surname... MORE

The All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Small Business, which met in Moscow February 20-23, was the first such meeting in post-Communist Russia. (8) This public demonstration by the small-business community of its growing weight has particular significance at a time when the Communists are talking... MORE

Meanwhile, RussiaÕs ÒdemocratsÓ are as divided as ever. Anatoly Chubais managed last week to engineer talks between Yegor Gaidar and Grigory Yavlinsky over the possibility of uniting behind a single presidential candidate, but the only immediate results were pious phrases and an agreement to maintain... MORE

Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov is set to become the first officially registered candidate in the June presidential elections. The deadline for submission of the required minimum of one million signatures is April 16, but ZyuganovÕs supporters have already deposited 1.7 million signatures with the... MORE

According to a poll of 1,584 Russian citizens conducted in mid-February by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research (also known by the Russian acronym VTsIOM) the Communist party candidate is well ahead, with 17 percent of those polled saying they would vote for him... MORE

The chairman of Dagestan's parliament, Mukhu Aliyev yesterday expressed concern that the Russian military "threaten all of us with another Pervomaiskoye" and that the Russian leadership's "lack of a concept for ending the war in Chechnya" destabilizes the North Caucasus as a whole. Last week... MORE

During talks in Moscow with his Bulgarian counterpart over the weekend, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov lauded the close ties existing between Moscow and Sofia and said that the development of better relations with the countries of eastern and central Europe is a priority for... MORE

Some units of Russia's 58th Army, which entered the Ingush republic from Chechnya February 22, began pulling back yesterday, but other units remained stationed around several Ingush villages, according to Russian and Ingush sources. The Russian force had lost at least 14 killed and 20... MORE

Russia's response yesterday to Cuba's destruction of two U.S. civilian planes over the weekend indicated that the United States will get little help from Moscow in its effort to win official UN condemnation of the action. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed regret over the... MORE

1. Reuter & Interfax, February 23 2. Reuter, February 23 3. AP, February 23 4. Segodnya, February 24 5. Interfax, February 23 6. Interfax, 22 January 1996 7. Delovoi mir, January 31, 1996 8. Reuter and UPI, February 23 9. Interfax, February 24 10. Russian... MORE