According to an article in the May 19 Moskovsky komsomolets, Yeltsin's administration is creating a Soviet-style international department within its ranks to rule on appointments of intelligence officers abroad. The paper said that this new body will be based on the Presidential Administration's own Commission... MORE

Boris Yeltsin has formed a special Russian Fund to retrieve cultural valuables from abroad, Segodnya reported June 2. Among its members are security officials Mikhail Barsukhov, Aleksandr Korzhakov and Sergei Stepashin. "With such people on the council of guardians, you can get anything back to... MORE

The Russian authorities deported Musret Budagov, one of the participants in the 1994 attempted coup in Baku, to Azerbaijan, Moskovsky komsomolets reported June 2. Moscow's handling of this case and its earlier arrest and then release of former Azerbaijani president Ayaz Mutalibov call attention to... MORE

Graduates of special schools set up for the children of Russian officers serving in former Soviet republics are overwhelmingly choosing military careers, Krasnaya zvezda reported May 25. Of the first 58 graduates of the six such schools in existence, 42 have decided to enter military... MORE

Polish President Lech Walesa opened a cemetery on the site of a Stalin-era massacre of 4400 Polish officers June 4, but Yeltsin only sent a message that was read out by his aide Sergei Filatov. The opening of this cemetery follows a long diplomatic struggle,... MORE

Over the next five years, the Russian authorities will cut down trees along the Russian-Finnish border and sell the wood in order to pay for better border control there, Rossiiskie vesti reported May 25. Moscow faces ever more problems along its northern borders, Segodnya reported... MORE

The Aum sect, widely believed responsible for the terrorist bombing of the Tokyo subway, and already known to be linked to Yeltsin security aide Oleg Lobov, was planning to sell Russian tanks to China, according to the June 2 Yomiuri Shimbun. The paper said that... MORE

Reporting on a study of how Russians spend their day, Izvestiya on May 27 said that on average 91percent of Russians watch television every day, 50percent listen to radio, 41percent read a newspaper, and 11percent read a magazine. Their opportunities to listen to electronic media... MORE

The 26 numerically small peoples of the Russian north are demanding that the Duma pass a law on their status that would protect their traditional way of life, Moscow radio reported June 1. Conditions among these groups have deteriorated in the last five years, creating... MORE

German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel told his Estonian counterpart Riivo Sinijarv that Germany wants to be "the advocate of the Baltic States in the expansion of the European Union and NATO," BNS reported June 2. On June 3, BNS said, Canadian officials had told Tallinn... MORE