More than 90 officers and generals gathered October 14 in Moscow for the initial organizing meeting of "Honor and Motherland," a movement led by the ubiquitous Lt. Gen. (ret) Aleksandr Lebed. In his address to the military delegates, Lebed deplored the deterioration of the army... MORE

Protest action at the Promyshlennaya mine of the Pechora coal basin continues into its fourth week. Forty-eight miners have stayed underground since September 25 to press social demands for workers who are losing their jobs as a result of mine closures. Since early October, ten... MORE

The Russian media is dissecting Viktor Chernomyrdin's October 13 address to the State Duma, especially its self-critical tone. "We are not very satisfied." said Chernomyrdin of his government's performance in the first nine months of 1995, even though there have been signs of progress. The... MORE

An International Monetary Fund delegation arrives in Moscow on Tuesday to start negotiating a three-year loan for Russia. The first round of negotiations, which will last a few weeks, will look at the possibility of an Extended Financing Facility (EFF) for Russia lasting three years,... MORE

"Russia views Cuba as a strategic partner and plans to develop military-technical cooperation with it," First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets said at the end of a six-day visit to Cuba by a large Russian governmental and military delegation. Soskovets said that the talks with... MORE

General Alibek Kasymov, previously chief of the general staff of Kazakhstan's armed forces, has been named defense minister, a presidential decree published on Tuesday said. Lukashenko Fires Interior Minister

Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko on Monday dismissed his interior minister, a measure almost certainly linked to police discontent over his withdrawal of privileges for officers. Filatov Fears Post-Election Civil War.

Presidential chief of staff Sergei Filatov fears that a victory by anti-reformist parties in the December elections to the Duma may trigger a civil war, because those parties seek to change the constitution and to redistribute property. Speaking to a gathering of heads of Russia's... MORE

US and Russian negotiators on Bosnia said on Tuesday that a Moscow meeting of the five-nation Contact Group had left questions unsolved. US negotiator Richard Holbrooke said that no agreement was reached on the vexing question of how the Russian military could be brought into... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin on Monday proposed that Yuri Skuratov, said to be an experienced legal expert, become Russia's prosecutor-general and he urged the upper house of parliament to give its speedy confirmation. Nazarbayev Appoints New Defense Minister.