Retired Lt. Gen. AleksandrLebed told Interfax July 19 that he would run for a Duma seatin Tula, the home base of a paratroop division he once commanded,but he refused to say whether he would run for president in 1996.In response to questions, he suggested that... MORE

Former Sovietprime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov will lead the nationalist opposition,Russian People's Union, in the December Duma elections, Itar-Tassreported July 19. Ryzhkov said that his bloc called "Powerto the People" would like to unite "all patriotic forces"and that it would be happy to cooperate with Aleksandr... MORE

An article in the July19 Segodnya denounced Russian foreign policy in generaland Moscow's approach in Yugoslavia in particular. Among its keyconclusions: "Moscow's main foreign policy goal is to retainits military and political presence in the spaces of its formerempire. Worried that the fruits of stability... MORE

Krasnaya zvezdareported July 19 that the Russian government will soon makedeputy premier Sergei Shakhrai responsible for overseeing Russianforeign policy and foreign intelligence operations. There hasbeen no official confirmation of this report, but among the reasonsYeltsin and Chernomyrdin might have for such a step is a... MORE

Interfax reported, butYeltsin aides have denied, that Col. Gen. Mikhail Barsukov willsoon be named director of the Federal Security Service, Itar-Tassreported July 20. Barsukov now heads the Main Directorate forthe Defense of the Russian Federation, a major portion of Yeltsin'spersonal security system. Russian Policy in... MORE

A Russian border guard was found decapitated and evisceratedin Budennovsk, and his blood had been used to write "Chechnya,Freedom, Independence" on a nearby wall, Interfax reportedJuly 19. Local prosecutors said the crime was obviously the workof a provocateur or a madman.

StanislavGovorukhin, the chairman of the Duma commission on investigatingthe causes of the Chechen crisis, said he would release a reportthis week, but Moscow's Echo radio reported that those who disagreewith his criticism of the government would release a minorityreport as well. Basayev Calls for International... MORE

ShamilBasayev, the leader of the Chechen raid on Budennovsk, told Komsomolskayapravda July 19 that an international tribunal should decide"who is to blame for the tragedy, Basayev or Russian politicians."In other comments, Basayev said that Chechnya would "neverseparate completely from Russia because of our close economicand... MORE

As the Constitutional Court prepares its decision on the legalityof Yeltsin's intervention in Chechnya, the Russian general staffis preparing to show that none of its orders in Chechnya citedYeltsin's decrees. Consequently, the military's directives wouldnot lose their force even if the Court unexpectedly finds thatYeltsin... MORE

The chief Russian negotiator in Chechnya, Vyacheslav Mikhailov,dismissed Federation Council chairman Vladimir Shumeiko's notionthat Ingush president Ruslan Aushev should represent Chechen-Ingushetiyain future regional negotiations. He characterized Shumeiko's positionas the work of "a man with a political imagination,"Interfax reported July 19. Shumeiko's proposal, however, doesreflect the... MORE