. Yesterday, on the second day of his visit to Britain, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma asserted that the West is beginning to recognize "Ukraine's importance to European security." This followed British prime minister John Major's statement at the December 13 meeting with Kuchma that Ukraine... MORE

Belarus will comply with all of its CFE commitments regardless of what Russia does, Belarusian foreign minister Uladzimir Syanko told a news conference yesterday. In Minsk last week, Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev said that Moscow may suspend its compliance with arms control agreements with... MORE

A district court in Riga has sentenced Alfons Noviks, a former chief of Latvia's KGB, to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of genocide against the Latvian people. Noviks was an organizer of mass deportations of Latvians to Siberia during the 1940s and early 1950s,... MORE

In a televised address to the nation today President Boris Yeltsin urged Russians not to allow the "forces of the past" to come to power in Sunday's parliamentary election. Yeltsin implicitly attacked his communist opponents by saying, "The most dangerous thing is that representatives of... MORE

. Boris Yeltsin's powerful but tight-lipped chief bodyguard, Lt. General Aleksandr Korzhakov, yesterday made an unusual appearance on national TV to urge his countrymen to vote in the elections to the Duma. He said that apathy would hand an "artificial victory" to the Communists and... MORE

Vasily Starodubtsev, head of the Agrarian Union of Russia, yesterday told voters in the Orel region (Central Russia) that the campaign for a referendum on private land ownership launched by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's "Russia is Our Home" movement was the last straw, guaranteeing peasants'... MORE

Russian military-space forces yesterday launched three more GLONASS global space navigation satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, thereby completing the 24-satellite system in orbit. The GLONASS system provides users with exact coordinates with a precision of up to 100 meters. Russia hopes to use... MORE

President Saparmurat Niyazov yesterday told his country in a televised address that the UN General Assembly had the preceding day approved unanimously a resolution to recognize Turkmenistan's status of permanent neutrality. Niyazov had announced Turkmenistan's decision in his September speech to the General Assembly. Foreign... MORE

According to Turkish press reports, an Armenian diplomatic note December 9 turned down a Turkish request to inspect Russian military units based in Armenia for verifying their compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. The reports said that Armenia had initially consented to allow... MORE

The Moldovan parliament has begun debating the draft law on the autonomy of Transdniester. The draft defines Transdniester as an "autonomous republic" which is an integral part of an indivisible Moldova. Transdniester is to have its own basic law, legislative assembly, and regional executive government,... MORE