The British government is reportedly reeling this week under an avalanche of revelations contained in a new book about Soviet-era KGB activities in Britain and throughout the world. The book, entitled "The Mitrokhin Archive" (though some sources have identified it instead as "The Sword and... MORE

The uneasy standoff between Islamic insurgents and Kyrgyz troops continues in the Osh Region's Batken and Chon-Alai districts. The insurgents have withdrawn from several villages to quarters at the edge of the same villages--a step which has been followed by the return of some local... MORE

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksandr Tkachenko, who seeks the presidency of Ukraine, represents the interests of the country's Soviet-bred, Russian-oriented chiefs of state and collective farms. Tkachenko is the informal leader of the Peasants' Party--the political organization of such chiefs, and is one of the champions... MORE

Virtually all of Russia's major politicians appear to believe that yesterday's terrorist bombing in Moscow--along with a similar blast last week in the capital and yet another earlier this month in Buinaksk, Dagestan--were the work of Chechen terrorists and/or their followers in Dagestan. However, Shamil... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin met yesterday morning after the apartment building bombing with various officials, including First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksenenko, Kremlin administration chief Aleksandr Voloshin, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov (see the Monitor, September 13). Instructing them to take the... MORE

Agreement between Russia and the United States on other issues did not appear to come so easily yesterday, however, though both sides did express satisfaction that they had at least resumed high-level military contacts. But Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev went out of his way... MORE

Russia and the United States yesterday took a small step toward repairing military ties damaged by the NATO air war against Yugoslavia. Following talks in Moscow, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev announced that the two sides had finalized an... MORE

Ukraine at the last moment withdrew what had looked like a preliminary invitation to Belarusan president Alyaksandr Lukashenka to attend the summit. In Minsk, a fuming Lukashenka castigated Kyiv for "bowing to the European Union" in rescinding the invitation. But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk... MORE

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma expressed serious concern lest the European Union's (EU) limited enlargement result in replacing the former Iron Curtain with a "paper curtain" of bureaucratic regulations to the detriment of Ukraine. The country's western neighbors--Poland and Hungary, soon to be admitted to the... MORE

Presidents Lennart Meri of Estonia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania underscored their countries' interest in revitalizing historic north-south commercial routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea and in extending those routes to the Caspian. Ukraine would, by dint of its... MORE