1. BBC World Service, February 1 2. Interfax, January 31 3. The Washington Post, Reuter, & Interfax, January 31 4. Interfax, January 31 5. European Commission Press Release, January 31; Delovaya Rossiya, January 30, 1996 6. Russian TV, NTV, Russia and Western agencies, January 28... MORE

Dismissed from his post January 29 by President Algirdas Brazauskas, Lithuanian prime minister Adolfas Slezevicius has again announced that he will not leave his post voluntarily. Slezevicius said earlier this week that he expected the parliamentary majority to overrule the president's decree in a debate... MORE

Yevgeny Primakov, in Kiev for the first time in his capacity as Russian foreign minister, seems to have stunned his Ukrainian hosts by taking a hard-line position on several outstanding issues in Ukrainian-Russian relations. In the words of a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry source, negotiations on... MORE

Ukraine does not perceive a serious enemy on the horizon in the next few years or decades, Defense Minister Valery Shmarov told students January 30 at the Belarusian Military Academy. Shmarov was in Minsk to sign a Ukrainian-Belarusian military cooperation plan for 1996. He told... MORE

In an effort to win the lifting of U.N. sanctions, the Iraqi government is reportedly offering attractive oil concessions to three permanent members of the Security Council: Russia, France, and China. The three have been offered contracts to rehabilitate and develop Iraqi oil fields, activities... MORE

In accordance with a January 22 decree issued by President Yeltsin, the Russian army intends to call up some 10,000 reservists for retraining in 1996. A General Staff source said the call-ups, which could last up to two months, are aimed at sharpening skills and... MORE

Communist organizations will meet in Moscow February 4 to try to agree on a presidential candidate. (11) The meeting is being organized by Viktor Anpilov, leader of Working Russia, a party that did unexpectedly well in last December's elections. Anpilov opposes Gennady Zyuganov's attempt to... MORE

The simmering conflict between retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, presidential candidate of the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO), and that organization's official leader, Yury Skokov, burst into the open this week when the leaders of KRO's Krasnodar and Rostov branches, Konstantin Zatulin and Viktor Petrov,... MORE

A group of activists in St. Petersburg plans to nominate Viktor Chernomyrdin as a candidate in the presidential elections. The prime minister's candidacy is also said to be on the agenda of a meeting of the "Russia is Our Home" movement scheduled for February 10.... MORE

President Yeltsin has appointed Oleg Kutafin to replace Abdulah Mikitayev as chairman of the presidential commission for citizenship issues. (8) The sensitive post deals not only with citizenship issues inside Russia, but also with the status of ethnic Russians in the non-Russian states of the... MORE