Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has endorsed Leonid Kuchma for reelection as president of Ukraine during Kuchma's June 23-25 official visit to Poland. Kwasniewski referred to "great achievements" of both the post-1991 Ukrainian leadership and Kuchma personally in "developing an independent state, opening Ukraine to the... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin today met with Pavel Krasheninnikov, Russia's justice minister, to discuss, among other things, legal issues involving the country's parliamentary elections (scheduled for December of this year). Prior to the meeting, Yeltsin expressed his displeasure at not having been supplied with information from... MORE

The effort to create a unified Russia-Belarus state appears to be gaining increasing momentum, though it remains difficult to say whether those pushing it intend for it to be achieved in the near- or long-term future. A meeting is scheduled to take place today in... MORE

Russia continued yesterday to reinforce and resupply its military contingent in Kosovo. Three Russian cargo planes carrying troops, weapons and airport equipment arrived at the Slatina airport near Pristina. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev, meanwhile, told reporters that the main part of Russia's 3,600-strong troop... MORE

The Kremlin's seeming defensiveness about the effectiveness of its Balkans policy appears to stem from both its rumored surprise over the June 12 deployment of troops to Kosovo and, more broadly, over criticism that Moscow had sold out Russian and Yugoslav interests in the negotiations... MORE

Russia's participation in NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping mission remained a focus of attention in Moscow yesterday as President Boris Yeltsin met in the Kremlin with Defense Minister Igor Sergeev to discuss the matter. Yeltsin was shown on Russian television welcoming Sergeev warmly and telling him that... MORE

On June 27, Tajik leaders celebrated the Day of National Unity--the anniversary of the peace agreements signed by the government and the opposition on that date in 1997, which ended the hostilities in the civil war. The second anniversary of those agreements was clouded by... MORE

The police have arrested three deputies of Kyrgyzstan's Assembly of People's Representatives, and are conducting criminal investigations against another seven deputies on multiple charges of corruption drawn up by the General Prosecutor's Office. The arrests and the investigations--including search warrants against at least one absconding... MORE

From June 22 to June 26, the Defense Ministry of Uzbekistan conducted command-staff exercises in the city of Tashkent and in the Tashkent Region. The main purpose of these exercises was to practice coordination among the army, the Internal Affairs Ministry and state security agencies... MORE

Anatoly Chubais, who has been fired and re-hired by President Boris Yeltsin many times, not only survived the June 26 shareholders' meeting for United Energy Systems (UES), Russia's electricity grid, but has come out stronger. Earlier this month, rumors had circulated that Chubais might be... MORE