A unit of the Moscow-based, crack anti-terror force Alpha will be permanently deployed at Stavropol Territory's Mineralnye Vody airport, the Territory's chief prosecutor Yuri Luzhnikov announced last week. He added that local law-enforcement and security bodies will step up intelligence gathering and, in particular, the... MORE

Unidentified attackers yesterday reportedly killed and wounded several Russian border guards, and are being sought by Russian troops with aviation support. The commander of the Caucasus border troop district, Col. General Viktor Zemtsov, has arrived at the scene and is holding talks with Ingush republic... MORE

Upon their return from Havana, Russian officials said that Russia and Cuba have set up a joint venture to develop oil transport and refining in Cuba. The venture is to be capitalized on a parity basis and will supply equipment for the uncompleted Cienfuegos and... MORE

Grachev and Perry were said to have reached "a meeting of the minds" on amending the treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe (CFE) to allow Russia to keep more military equipment in some border areas. Moscow insists on being allowed higher quotas of combat hardware... MORE

Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and US Defense Secretary William Perry stood on the edge of a Missouri cornfield near Whiteman Air Force Base on Saturday and, each with a finger on the detonators, set off an explosion that destroyed a Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile... MORE

The two officials did not, however, reach agreement on Russian participation in the Bosnia peacekeeping operation, despite two days of talks over Thursday and Friday. To gloss over the failure and to maintain forward movement, they did agree to create a joint Special Operations Unit... MORE

Earlier in the week, the TsIK disqualified several other parties, including the "Democratic Russia" bloc, chaired by well-known democrats Galina Starovoitova, Gleb Yakunin, and Lev Ponomarev; and the Russian Zemstvo Movement, supported by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, which promotes political representation on the estate principle and devolution... MORE

In an address to a nationwide Moscow conference of the bloc "Russia is Our Home," which he chairs, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said that RIOH had "seriously overestimated" its preparedness for the upcoming elections to the Duma. He said that 40 of the bloc's 261... MORE

. It was announced over the weekend that Russia's Central Electoral Commission (TsIK) has refused to register two of Russia's leading political parties -- "Derzhava" (State Power) and "Yabloko" (Apple). This means neither will be able to take part in December's parliamentary elections. Derzhava, on... MORE

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said today that that Russian democracy would suffer from the ruling. "This decision was, at the least, ill-considered and harmful, not only for the election campaign, but also for democracy in this country," he told Interfax. Duma, Government Compromise on Budget.