Ukrainian defense minister Valeri Shmarov told Interfax May 25 that Ukrainewas not planning to seek NATO membership anytime soon. His commentscame as US secretary of defense William Perry attended jointUkrainian-American military exercises near Lviv, maneuvers that are beingconducted under the alliance's Partnership for Peace program... MORE

On May 24, the RussianDuma voted 227 to 2 to impose a moratorium on any reduction or withdrawal of Russia's 14th Army from Moldova until a political settlement on theTransdniestr region is achieved. The Duma bill also calls for sending moreRussian conscripts to the army,... MORE

Moldova's 150,000 Gagauz, a Turkic-speakingbut Orthodox Christian community, will elect a parliament and a president on May 28, Basarpress reported. The elections will thus form a government for the new autonomous region which covers 770 square miles centered on thesouthern Moldovan city of Komrat. The... MORE

Ingush republic vicepresident Boris Agapov told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rightsspecial representative in the North Caucasus that the violation of human rights in the region actually began with the October 1992 mass deportation of the Ingush from North Ossetia's Prigorodnyi rayon, Interfax reported... MORE

During a break in the stalled talks betweenthe Tajik government and the Tajik opposition, the two sides sought additional support. Opposition leader Akbar Turajonzoda visited Kyrgyzstan May 25, Moscow radio reported. (The opposition already has gained support from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.) Meanwhile, Interfax reported, Aga... MORE

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has invited Jacques Atteli, former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Frenchconstitutional council chairman Roland Dumas to join 10 Kazakhs in drafting a new constitution for the country, Moscow radio reported May 25. Sleeping With The Enemy.

Washington has lifted the Cold Warrestrictions prohibiting American diplomats from having "intimate or romantic" contacts with Russians, according to a US Embassy Moscow press release May 25. Earlier the United States had dropped such restrictions on contacts with nationals of the other 14 former Soviet... MORE

Representatives of Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev met in Grozny May24 with Moscow's governor in Chechnya, and with representatives of theMoscow-backed Chechen government, Itar-Tass reported. However, after onlyfour hours of talks, they broke up without a new date being set. Meanwhile,even as the sides sat down,... MORE

In his first major interview on Russiantelevision in many months, Boris Yeltsin put forward his ideas on the elections,on Russian policy toward the Commonwealth of Independent States, and onthe current political scene inside Russia itself. Appearing on Russia'sindependent television channel May 24--a step that represents... MORE

Yeltsin's security advisorOleg Lobov said that Moscow would sign onto NATO's Partnership for Peaceprogram only if "our principled position on NATO enlargement" is somehowregistered in the documents, and only if NATO acknowledges that the PFP issubordinate to a broader Europe-wide security arrangement, Interfax reportedMay 24.... MORE