A Defense Ministry official announced yesterday that a reconnaissance group of the 106th paratrooper divisional headquarters would arrive in Bosnia today. The official said the group will determine routes for the Russian peacekeeping brigade moving to its area of responsibility as part of multi-national peace... MORE

Foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev yesterday ruled out political asylum in Russia for Bosnian Serb commander-in-chief Gen. Ratko Mladic. Kozyrev was asked about a report in the Sunday Times (London) which said Russia's military attache in Belgrade, General Viktor Chipilov, had made such an offer to... MORE

Oleg Pavlov, a leader of the independent trade union of railway workers and transport builders, said on Friday that that 110 construction workers on the Severo-Mui tunnel of the Baikal-Amur Railroad (BAM) had declared a hunger strike. According to Pavlov, strikers decided to end their... MORE

Russian authorities and their Chechen appointees in Grozny opened the balloting December 14, three days ahead of schedule, and closed it at 15:00 on the officially scheduled election day, December 17. They claimed an aggregate turnout of 80 to 90 percent for the four days.... MORE

Elections were held yesterday for governors in twelve Russian regions: Maritime Krai and Belgorod, Lipetsk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Tambov, Tver and Tomsk Oblasts -- and for a mayor in Yaroslavl. In Maritime Krai in the Far East, the strong-willed incumbent, Yevgeny... MORE

. Yabloko party leader Grigori Yavlinsky predicted, that Yeltsin, being a populist, would try to move closer to the communists, just as he coopted some nationalist positions after the Zhirinovsky party's surprise success in the 1993 election. Yavlinsky appeared confident a return to communism was... MORE

With his party set for a strong showing, communist leader Gennady Zyuganov asserted while casting his ballot that the West should not be afraid of him, "a peaceful man." Zyuganov pronounced himself ready to form a broad coalition in the Duma for the sake of... MORE

President Yeltsin dismissed the first election results reported today, saying it was still too early to predict the final outcome. When casting his vote yesterday, Yeltsin told journalists that "No circumstances could force me to abandon the course of reforms I have chosen." Asked whether... MORE

Voter turnout for the elections was 65 percent nationwide, well above the 50.6 percent turnout recorded during the last Russian parliamentary elections of December 1993. Turnout is reported to have been higher in regions inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians than in Russia's ethnically-based republics. With... MORE

Preliminary election results suggest the nationalist Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) has failed to clear the 5 percent hurdle necessary for party representation in the Duma. But the movement's second-ranking candidate, retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, has been elected to an individual seat in Tula,... MORE