If Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's deal with the Chechens sticks, the Duma's planned no confidence vote on June 21 will probably fall short, various Russian parliamentarians and commentators told Moscow radio June 19. But if there are indications that the agreement is falling apart, then... MORE

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's "Russia is Our Home" electoral bloc has begun to purge its ranks of non-apparatus people, Moscow News reported this week. Duma speaker Ivan Rybkin's electoral bloc did the same. In this as well as in the blessing of the Russian president... MORE

According to a recent poll, 83 percent of Russians do not believe that the Russian government cares about their fate, Russian television reported June 18. The station suggested that this feeling reflected the absence of democratic traditions in the country, and in particular the inability... MORE

While official unemployment is set at a little more than two million, actual unemployment is three times that number and is rising by two to three percent a month, Russia's labor minister Gennadi Melikian told Russian radio June 19. MP Sees Russian Army of 1.2... MORE

Sergei Yushenkov, the chairman of the Duma's defense committee, told Russian television June 19 that he believed the Russian army would ultimately number 1-1.2 million men. This represents a reduction of at least 500,000 from current levels. In other remarks, Yushenko complained that the army... MORE

The Duma has refused to ratify Russian government agreements with Belarus on the withdrawal of Russian troops from that country, agreements with Georgia on the legal status of Russian troops there (signed in 1993), and agreements with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on the granting of Russian... MORE

Parliamentarians in the northern Russian republic of Komi have issued an appeal for the annulment of the December 1991 Belovezhskaya pushcha accords that brought down the Soviet Union, Kommersant-Daily reported June 17. The Komi appeal said that this would open the way for "accelerating the... MORE

Vladimir Zhirinovsky convened an international conference to push for the lifting of the UN embargo on Iraq, Moscow television reported June 5. In his speech to the Moscow meeting, Zhirinovsky also called for an end to UN sanctions against Libya, Serbia, and North Korea. On... MORE

Moscow will participate in the Expomilitar-95 exhibition in Bogota, Colombia, June 20-25, Izvestiya reported May 16. Russia will seek to sell both advanced helicopters and its ever-popular Kalashnikov rifles. A New Russian Peace Plan for Yugoslavia?

Russian deputy foreign minister Vitaly Churkin visited Belgrade and Pale June 19, apparently to press Boris Yeltsin's ideas about ending the Bosnian war through linking Serbia and Bosnian Serb-held territories. Yeltsin had advanced this plan at Halifax but the G-7 leaders did not even discuss... MORE