The Kremlin has to take into account that the "democratic opposition"--Yabloko--is committed to backing President Boris Yeltsin's impeachment on at least one count. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky repeated today that his movement's forty-six Duma deputies would vote unanimously in favor of the Chechen war accusation,... MORE

The political council of Ukraine's United Social Democratic Party (USDP) has decided to back incumbent President Leonid Kuchma at the presidential elections in October, party chairman Viktor Medvedchuk announced on May 11. Approval of Kuchma's nomination by the USDP congress scheduled for May 15 should... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin could have guaranteed that there would not be a constitutional showdown, a least immediately, by allowing Sergei Stepashin to serve as acting prime minister for two months without putting his candidacy before the Duma, as Russia's law on government permits. He did... MORE

As a result of yesterday's sacking of former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and the start today of the State Duma's impeachment proceedings against President Boris Yeltsin, Russia could soon be facing its first major constitutional standoff since Yeltsin's dissolution of the Soviet-era parliament in September... MORE

Those differences between Russia and NATO over Kosovo--and particularly the question of how a post-conflict security force in the province should be constituted--were the subjects of consultations in Moscow yesterday between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Russian officials. Talbott met yesterday with... MORE

The already complicated task of negotiating a settlement of the Kosovo conflict became downright messy yesterday in the wake of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's decision to dismiss Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. Although officials throughout the West were quick to say officially that they expected no... MORE

Following talks in Ashgabat with the head of NATO's Partnership Coordination Center, General Anthony Kolsteren, the Turkmen leadership has finalized and agreed to sign an individual country program for 1999-2000 in the framework of the alliance's Partnership for Peace. The country program for Turkmenistan includes... MORE

Countries are beginning to take flight from the Interstate Aviation Conference (MAK), the CIS regulatory agency for civil aviation. Moldova did so yesterday, in a move bound to encourage others. Armenia and Ukraine look set to follow suit. These countries have chosen to join the... MORE

The alternative presidential balloting, set by the Belarusan opposition for May 6-May 16, seems to proceed apace. Almost 14,000 volunteers in 2,500 localities across Belarus, operating mostly at night, are involved in the door-to-door vote-collecting campaign. Having compiled electoral registers in advance, the local groups... MORE

Russian-Chinese cooperation was also on display in Geneva yesterday when ambassadors from the two countries criticized both U.S. plans to deploy a national missile defense system and NATO's bombardment of China's embassy in Belgrade. The criticism came during a plenary meeting of the United Nations... MORE