President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine flew yesterday to Helsinki for a two-day state visit, amid rumors in Kiev that U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher will join up with him there for a conversation before Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov's arrival in the Finnish capital... MORE

The ruling Democratic Labor Party's support for Prime Minister Adolfas Slezevicius in his confrontation with President Algirdas Brazauskas is unraveling. The Lithuanian parliament is scheduled to debate today the president's motion to dismiss the prime minister, who has admitted to personal misconduct in the country's... MORE

The Russian Federal Assembly's delegation to the February 16-17 session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly (IPA) in St. Petersburg will for the first time be dominated by Communists and ultranationalists, largely reflecting the new Duma's composition. The delegation will be led by the Duma's Communist... MORE

President Yeltsin is to visit the city of Yekaterinburg February 13-14. Known in the Soviet period as Sverdlovsk, this is the region in which Yeltsin was born and where he made his power-base until he moved to Moscow to become that city's Party boss. Presidential... MORE

The Russian government plans to continue the controversial shares-for-loans scheme launched last year, but will revise some of the procedures of the process. (8) One likely change is that banks that act as agents for the State Property Committee will be barred from participating in... MORE

New details on Russia's sale of SU-27 fighter jets to China (see Monitor, February 5) indicate that Beijing has agreed to purchase up to 48 additional aircraft prior to licensing the technology that will allow them to produce the high performance Russian jet at home.... MORE

An earlier report in a Russian newspaper suggests that President Yeltsin's remarks at the Security Council meeting yesterday may represent the culmination, rather than the initiation, of a new aggressiveness in Russian economic espionage. Moscow News reported February 4 that at a series of secret... MORE

According to reports of the Security Council meeting, Yeltsin identified Russia's deteriorating technical and intellectual base as a threat to national security. He ordered Russia's intelligence services to promote the country's "technological rearmament" by better exploiting the information they have gathered. Yeltsin also alleged that... MORE

Russia's shadowy and powerful Security Council convened yesterday for the first time since Russian president Boris Yeltsin suffered a heart attack last October. As always, the meeting was held behind closed doors and few details of the discussions were made public. In addition to Yeltsin,... MORE

An Uzbek government-sponsored Islamic television channel went on the air February 2 in Tashkent. Operating on an irregular schedule for the time being, the channel will broadcast on a daily basis after its Japanese equipment is fully in place. The channel will broadcast Mohammedan prayers... MORE