Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma said at a Kiev news conference that the admission of a country into NATO can not be discussed without taking Russia's position into account, but that "each state has the right to decide itself on its participation." Ukraine "wants to be... MORE

U.S. and Kazakh officials signed an agreement on October 3 to seal the former Soviet Union's nuclear test tunnel complex at Semipalatinsk so it can never test nuclear weapons again. The complex in Degelen Mountain has 186 test tunnels and is the largest such nuclear... MORE

Ivan Lushchinsky, chairman of the board of Baltic Maritime Lines, was murdered in St. Petersburg. The murder, according to investigators, had all the signs of a paid killing. (8) Baltic Maritime Lines is the biggest Russian steamship line in the Baltic. Privatized in 1993, the... MORE

Command-post exercises on controlling strategic nuclear forces began in Russia yesterday under General Staff Chief Mikhail Kolesnikov. The maneuvers are said to be designed to test operations for controlling strategic troops "under different conditions. " The exercises, which are to conclude with training launches of... MORE

The chief of the Leningrad region's MVD office for combating organized crime, Anatoly Oleinikov, said that he can prove that Dmitri Yakubovsky is guilty of theft, and of trying to sell abroad manuscripts worth $300 million. Oleinikov said that the Swiss and Israeli police participated... MORE

Minister of Internal Affairs Anatoly Kulikov says that his agency has sent the Central Election Commission a list of 85 names of candidates running for the Duma who either have faced or are facing criminal charges. Kulikov said that what to do about this information... MORE

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin says that he has no intentions of running for the Russian presidency, and that recent mass media stories of a rift between him and Boris Yeltsin are totally wrong. Federation Council chairman Vladimir Shumeiko, who is known to be close to... MORE

In several interviews, the chairman of the Congress of Russian Communities (and former security council secretary) Yuri Skokov has categorically denied stories that he had recently met with Boris Yeltsin, and that Yeltsin offered to make him of Prime Minister in place of Chernomyrdin. Skokov... MORE

The Duma will discuss the government's draft budget and seems likely to approve it. But 122 members of the Federation Council have issued a statement declaring their dissatisfaction with the draft because it doesn't provide enough money for projects "which would increase social stability and... MORE

The Duma opened its fall session October 4 by preparing for impeachment proceedings against president Boris Yeltsin. According to Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, his Duma faction has already collected over 150 signatures to initiate this procedure. Although the impeachment motion failed in the Duma's... MORE