On August 3, the leadership of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) officially announced the disbandment of its armed detachments. The announcement caps a two-year process, which was mandated by the inter-Tajik peace agreement signed in Moscow in 1997, and whose official completion took considerably longer... MORE

Natalya Vitrenko, 47, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), is the most radical Red among the runners in the current presidential race. In the intensity of her antimarket and anti-western views, she outstrips even Communist Party First Secretary Petro Symonenko. Vitrenko, a... MORE

On July 31, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma fired First Deputy Premier Volodymyr Kuratchenko, a representative of eastern Ukraine's industrial lobby. Kuratchenko's dismissal followed his open disagreement with the course of reforms and their coordination with international financial institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund (IMF).... MORE

According to the results of a survey taken by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), which were released yesterday, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov remains in significantly good favor with the Russian people. The respondents were asked to name the five... MORE

Russian media, as usual with attribution to various unnamed high-placed sources, are reporting that the upper reaches of the government are on the verge of a serious shakeup. Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin's position has reportedly been put under threat by the announcement that Fatherland, the... MORE

Washington and Moscow moved to build on their recent diplomatic momentum this week as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov agreed that the two countries would work together in the Middle East, in Kosovo and in arms control efforts. In an... MORE

Back in Kosovo, meanwhile, Russian troops continue to encounter some rough sledding. Yesterday approximately 1,000 ethnic Albanians marched toward a Russian base in the southeastern town of Kosovska Kamenica to protest the presence of Russian KFOR troops in the area. U.S. troops reportedly monitored the... MORE

Russia offered little more than a cautious welcome yesterday to the appointment of British Defense Secretary George Robertson as NATO's new secretary general. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin chose to emphasize that relations with the Western alliance remain troubled, and said that Moscow will... MORE

Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliev's official visit to Iran, tentatively scheduled for September, faces obstacles which stem from the nature of Iran's policy in the region. On August 3, Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Tofig Zulfugarov summoned Iran's Baku ambassador, Aliriza Bikdeli, to hand over a protest note... MORE

In an interview with Belarusan and Russian journalists, published yesterday in Minsk and Moscow, president Alyaksandr Lukashenka expressed apprehension that the Kremlin might jettison him, once he has served the purpose of uniting Belarus with Russia. Pointing to Russia's recent welcome of the Montenegrin president... MORE