President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on July 6 dissolving Russia's State Press Committee and the Federal Service for Television and Radio Broadcasting, and replacing them with a Ministry for Press, Television, Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications. Commenting on the measure, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin... MORE

The split within the Rukh--Ukraine's main national-democratic political force--deepened last week. Ukraine's Supreme Court confirmed an earlier decision by the Justice Ministry pronouncing the Rukh wing led by former Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko the only legitimate heir to the original Rukh, which was founded by... MORE

Speaking in Tel Aviv on June 30, Vadim Rabinovych--a Ukrainian-Israeli businessman who was declared officially undesirable by Ukraine on June 24--gave his side of the story of his relations with the establishment and media (see the Monitor, June 25). Rabinovych, president of the Swiss-registered concern... MORE

In the course of visits June 29-July 1 to Tbilisi and Baku, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk has unveiled proposals designed to reduce Russian leverage in the South Caucasus and to begin the institutionalization of GUUAM--the pro-Western grouping made up of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan... MORE

For the first time since the end of the war in Chechnya, Russian Interior Ministry forces have launched preventive strikes on Chechen guerrillas concentrated in the Chechnya-Dagestan border area. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo said on July 5 that at 6 o'clock that morning 200... MORE

The Belarus scenario is not the only one being talked up (see the Monitor, July 6). According to another, the Kremlin may want to move up the presidential contest rather than postpone it. Postponing it would not get rid of those candidates the Kremlin and... MORE

In a move probably not unrelated to developments in Kosovo, President Boris Yeltsin and a large contingent of top cabinet officials made a rare appearance at the Russian Defense Ministry on July 2. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to review the results of... MORE

Russia began flying troops and materiel into Kosovo yesterday, one day after Moscow and NATO resolved their differences over the conditions under which the Russian contingent would serve in the province. Several hundred Russian paratroopers and about twenty tons of equipment arrived at the Slatina... MORE

Arkady Gukasian, president of the unrecognized Karabakh republic, has appointed Anushavan Danielian to the post of prime minister of Karabakh. Danielian replaces Jirair Poghosian, whom Gukasian dismissed--along with the entire government--on June 24 as part of an effort to contain the ambitions of defense minister... MORE

The Armenian nation and its Church--the world's oldest Christian church--are mourning their supreme religious leader, the Catholicos of all Armenians Garegin I, who died of cancer on June 29 in the religious capital Echmiadzin and will be buried there on July 8. Garegin's death caught... MORE