Yesterday's reports by Western news agencies concerning the unsuccessful attempt by Russian forces to storm Djohar, the Chechen capital, on the night of December 15 (see the Monitor, December 16), have aroused a storm of outrage in Moscow. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev declared that... MORE

CIS member countries' reactions to the signing of the Russia-Belarus union treaty range from a complete lack of interest--in the case of Turkmenistan--to a conclusive no, albeit one colored by local nuances. (This story is continued from yesterday's issue.) Ukraine From the Russian and Belarusan... MORE

Russia's parliamentary election campaign is winding to a close in much the same way that it began--fraught with mutual accusations of cheating and dirty tricks. Yesterday, Vyacheslav Igrunov, a top official of Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko, charged that the Moscow authorities were committing "open and large-scale"... MORE

But an unnamed U.S. official, speaking anonymously, acknowledged yesterday that Western protests have had no discernible impact on Russian military actions in Chechnya, and only a minor impact on the political considerations relative to the Caucasus conflict. "On the military side, I think we have... MORE

The West continued to rain down criticism on Moscow yesterday over its military operations in Chechnya. But despite some signs of concern in Russia about its growing diplomatic isolation, there was little to indicate that the Western condemnations were having any substantial impact on Moscow's... MORE

Reports out of Chechnya today contradict one another on whether Russian federal forces have made an attempt to storm the republic's capital. Western media--including CNN, the AP and Reuters--are reporting that Russian forces attempted to storm the city last night, specifically, that a column of... MORE

On December 14, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) turned down President Leonid Kuchma's proposed candidacy of Valery Pustovoytenko as prime minister. Pustovoytenko, who has held the post since July 1997, submitted his resignation after the presidential elections, as required by the constitution. Kuchma, however, then... MORE

Ukraine's second largest left-wing force, the Socialist Party (SPU), is purging its ranks of radical Marxists. On November 22, Oleksandr Pokrovsky and Vasyl Arestov--respectively the pro-Communist chairman of SPU's Lviv branch and the leader of the party's Kyiv organization--were expelled from SPU's political council, its... MORE

The treaty on "creating a union state" of Russia and Belarus, signed on December 8 by Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Alyaksandr Lukashenka (see the Monitor, December 8-10), is--in principle and in intent--not limited to those two countries. The document is so phrased as to permit... MORE

Yesterday's demonstration in support of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov went off more or less without a hitch, despite rumors of plots to provoke violence. Police estimated that 75,000 people showed up. Many of these, though, were connected to the rally's sponsor, the Moscow Federation of... MORE