Only days after the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved the 1993 START II Treaty, opposition to ratification has begun to simmer in the Russian parliament. Parliamentary leaders from both the Communist and Liberal Democratic parties yesterday linked their reservations about the treaty directly to planned NATO... MORE

1. Russian TV, "Segodnya," January 17; Russian and Western Press Agencies, January 16 & 17 2. Russian TV, Segodnya, January 27; Interfax, January 27 3. Reuter & Interfax, January 28 4. Reuter, January 26 5. Reuter, January 28 6. UPI and Interfax, January 26 7.... MORE

The council on Cossack affairs which reports to the office of the Russian president met January 26 in Moscow under the chairmanship of Yeltsin's new chief of staff, Nikolai Yegorov. (15) At the meeting, Russian Cossacks voiced concern about continuing lack of clarity regarding their... MORE

A group of supporters has nominated former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to be a presidential candidate in June. (17) Electoral regulations require the group to register and to collect at least one million signatures of support from a minimum of fifteen of Russia's constituent territories... MORE

. President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who went on record last November as admiring certain aspects of Adolf Hitler's regime, has been appointed a member of the Academy of Social Sciences under the auspices of Russia's Institute of Social and Political Sciences. Reasons for the honor have... MORE

Ukrainian economic overtures to Iran, mainly in search of a future oil supplier, have begun to pay off in other ways: the Motor-Sich plant in Zaporizha recently won an international tender to build passenger aircraft for Iran. The contract's estimated value is $4 billion. Other... MORE

. The Russian government approved a number of measures January 27 aimed at tightening the state's monopoly over the production and sale of alcohol. In force since czarist times, the monopoly was briefly relaxed in the early reform period but is now being reimposed. Officials... MORE

According to the Financial Times, an internal memorandum signed by Yeltsin and sent to senior government ministers earlier this month ordered the dismissal of regional officials who did not support the pro-government "Russia is Our Home" movement in last month's parliamentary elections. (7) The newspaper... MORE

The U.S. Senate voted by a wide margin January 26 to ratify the START II treaty. In Moscow, President Boris Yeltsin pledged the next day that he would press the Duma to ratify the treaty prior to the April meeting of G-7 nations in Moscow.... MORE

Before his departure for Washington yesterday, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin sought to dispel rumors that Russia's negotiations with the IMF for a three-year, $9 billion loan were not going well due to recent Russian cabinet changes -- particularly the dismissal of reformer Anatoly Chubais --... MORE