While official parades were taking place in Red Square and at Poklonnaya hill, some 20,000 hardline opponents of the Yeltsin regime rallied in Lubyanka square, the infamous site of the headquarters building of the Soviet-era KGB. The demonstration took place after a Moscow city court... MORE

Human rights activist Viktor Krivulin denounced the Yeltsin government for seeking to "privatize" the triumph of the Russian people over fascism. Writing in the May 8 Vecherny Sankt-Peterburg, Krivulin said that Yeltsin had "turned the blood shed by the Russian people into ideological capital." Meanwhile,... MORE

The fourteen non-Russian countries in the region marked the anniversary in very different ways. The Baltic governments commemorated the anniversary on May 8--the Western anniversary--not May 9, as the Russians do, and many officials in the three countries pointedly noted that "victory" had left their... MORE

Although Russian troops staged a V-E Day parade near the Grozny airport, fighting continued May 9-10. Chechen commanders said that their forces would fight on until the Russians withdraw. On May 9 and spoiling the V-E Day mood, General Nikolai Yegorov, the Russian commander in... MORE

The International Committee of Jurists released a statement May 9 calling on world leaders in Moscow to condemn Russian violations of human rights in Chechnya. It said that their failure to do so while in Moscow will only "serve to condone" Russian misdeeds there. At... MORE

The German weekly Stern said that Russian officials were behind the smuggling of plutonium into Munich in August 1994, ZDF television reported May 9. But the German government released a statement saying that it had no evidence to make this link. Estonian President: Moscow Must... MORE

Speaking to reporters May 9, Estonian president Lennart Meri said Moscow must turn away from its currently aggressive line if it hopes to be integrated into the West. Meri, who had participated in West European V-E Day commemorations on May 8, said that he feared... MORE

NATO experts told a conference in Vilnius May 9 that Lithuanian military forces could achieve NATO standards in two to three years, BNS reported. Speaking at a conference on peace-keeping activities, several NATO officials praised Lithuania and the other Baltic states for their progress in... MORE

All three Baltic countries saw their inflation rates fall in April, BNS reported May 9. In Estonia, prices rose 1.0% in that month; in Latvia, 1.4%; and in Lithuania, 1.9%. All three did better than any of the twelve other former Soviet republics during the... MORE

Clashes between Russian and Chechen forces continued over the weekend in both Grozny and in the eastern regions of the republic, Moscow media reported. A Russian jet was shot down May 5, and the clashes claimed additional victims on each side. Defense Minister Pavel Grachev... MORE