With the elections of October 31 drawing ever nearer, the Ukrainian parliament--in which over a dozen presidential hopefuls sit--is increasing its pressure on incumbent President Leonid Kuchma. The lawmakers are now targeting Oleksandr Volkov, member of parliament and the chief of the incumbent president's campaign... MORE

Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin has met with the candidate for the post of head of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, former Russian ground forces commander Vladimir Semenov. Stepashin and Semenov discussed measures to stabilize the situation in the republic. The two discussed issues of personnel and cooperation between law... MORE

Another battle appears to be brewing--for control of United Energy Systems (UES), Russia's state electricity grid. Under pressure from a key member of the Kremlin "family"--presidential administration chief Aleksandr Voloshin--Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin is reportedly supposed to make a decision soon about firing UES chief... MORE

Big shake-ups could be in store in the management of Gazprom, Russia's natural gas monopoly--changes reportedly designed to strengthen the grip of the Kremlin inner circle (or at least one of its factions) over the country's major financial flows. Yesterday, former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin,... MORE

Russian officials, meanwhile, kept up their drumbeat of criticism yesterday over NATO's alleged failure to deal effectively with the Kosovo Liberation Army. Russia's UN ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, yesterday accused the alliance of violating the Kosovo peace agreement by allowing Kosovo rebels to establish their influence... MORE

The Russian government, meanwhile, appears in recent days to be attempting to introduce some order into its policy making vis-a-vis Kosovo. Following a meeting with President Boris Yeltsin on June 15, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin announced that the Foreign Ministry would henceforth play the lead... MORE

Nearly eight hours of talks between the Russian and U.S. defense chiefs in Helsinki yesterday failed to resolve differences over command arrangements for a Russian peacekeeping presence in Kosovo. Neither Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev nor U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen disclosed details of their... MORE

Officials of the Federal Security Service (FSB) yesterday commemorated what would have been the eighty-fifth birthday of Yuri Andropov, who headed the Soviet KGB for fifteen years and served for less than two years as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. FSB chief Vladimir... MORE

Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who met yesterday with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Michel Camdessus in St. Petersburg, said today that Russia has the chance to receive a "rather large" credit from the IMF in July if the State Duma passes a package of... MORE

More than fifty large Russian corporations and the government today signed an agreement to freeze prices in a number of basic sectors, including energy, metals and transportation, for the rest of the year. The signatories included United Energy Systems (UES), Russia's electricity grid; Gazprom, the... MORE