US vice presidentAl Gore and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin will cover a largenumber of issues when they meet in Moscow June 29-30, Segodnyareported June 27. In addition to discussions on the handling ofnuclear materials and on Moscow's plans to sell reactors to Iran,the two leaders... MORE

Inyet another Russian bid to win East European support for Moscow'sopposition to NATO expansion, Federation Council speaker VladimirShumeiko told Romanian officials that the West was using NATOexpansion to destroy the economies and especially the export capacitiesof Russia and her East European neighbors, Russian radio reportedJune... MORE

Arguingthat Moscow had taken certain positive steps in resolving theChechen crisis, the leaders of the European Union said that theywould now go forward with an interim trade and cooperation agreementwith Russia, Moscow media reported June 27. That accord had beenon hold since January 1995, when... MORE

Ina June 24 interview with Trud, leading Russian economistPavel Bunich noted that Russia is "still a country of monopolies."Some 500 firms--0.5 percent of the total number of enterprises--stillproduce more than 20 percent of the country's output, he said,and in some sectors, the dominance of large... MORE

TheRussian government is again seeking passage of a law to punishthose who launder illegally acquired funds, Trud reportedJune 24. The measure, proposed in 1990 but quickly dropped, hasmany opponents, but it is absolutely necessary if Russia is toavoid total criminalization, the paper said. "Unlike themajority... MORE

DeputyPremier Yuri Yarov said on Russian television June 27 that Russia'sregions must play a bigger role in providing welfare support forthe population. He did not say where they would get the money.In other remarks, Yarov said that Moscow would soon raise theminimum wage and increase... MORE

Among the many Russians whohave not received a paycheck recently are Col. Gen. Boris Gromovand his staff, Kommersant-Daily reported June 27. Gromov,a deputy defense minister who is serving as a military advisorat the foreign ministry, appealed to Yeltsin to pay him and hisstaff. Apparently officials... MORE

In anothermove with political consequences, the Russian gas industry giantGazprom has decided to move its hard currency earnings from theImperial and Foreign Trade banks to its own Gazprom bank, Kommersant-Dailyreported June 27. While observers suggested that the Gazprom banklacked the skills necessary to handle the... MORE

Prime Minister ViktorChernomyrdin's political bloc has been successful in using theresources of office, but it has still not found a program, Rossiiskievesti said June 27. The party will try to adopt one at itssecond congress, now scheduled for between August 26 and September3. Zhirinovsky Sees... MORE

In a wide-ranginginterview in the June 27 Pravda, Russian nationalist leaderVladimir Zhirinovsky said that he believed Yeltsin's policieswere leading Russia toward disintegration. To counter that trend,Zhirinovsky urged an expansion of the army, the expulsion of foreigngroups like the Soros Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment, andthe... MORE