President Saparmurat Niazov confirmed on April 21 that Turkmenistan had recently stopped gas deliveries to Ukraine, and explained why. Pursuant to Niazov's December 1998 agreement with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Turkmenistan delivered 6 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine via Russia during the first... MORE

Russian and Armenian air defense forces, based at Chobankara and Gyumri in Armenia, began yesterday the first exercise of their modernized joint air defense system. The exercise marks the beginning of regular patrol duty over Armenia by Russian and Armenian interceptor planes. This bilateral, operational... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka yesterday firmed up his negative attitude to Yugoslavia's--in fact, Serbia's without Montenegro--offer to join the Russia-Belarus Union. Lukashenka called for a joint Moscow-Minsk reply to Belgrade to the effect that "we shall consider this request, but will not make a decision tomorrow... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry treated with utmost discretion a meeting of the Working Group for the Adaptation of the CIS Collective Security Treaty, held in Moscow on April 20--the treaty's expiration date. The Russian side was still hoping against hope that Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan would... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin indicated earlier this week that he intends to pay a visit to Japan for summit talks with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi sometime in the autumn. Yeltsin said that this came during talks in the Kremlin on April 21 with Ryutaro Hashimoto,... MORE

A Greek government spokesman announced yesterday that Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles have arrived on the island of Crete. The spokesman refused to provide any details of the delivery, other than to say that the missiles had reached their destination. He did not say whether yesterday's... MORE

Against the backdrop of rising tensions between the Kremlin and the parliament, a group of regional leaders announced yesterday that they had formed a new bloc which would join forces with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's movement Fatherland (Otechestvo), for the parliamentary vote set for later... MORE

The Clinton administration reacted cautiously yesterday to press reports indicating that former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin had won a commitment from Yugoslav authorities to permit an "international presence" in Kosovo. The announcement followed some eight hours of talks in Belgrade between Chernomyrdin--recently named the... MORE

The Kremlin continued to issue warnings in the wake of the Federation Council's vote in support of Yuri Skuratov, the Russian prosecutor general whom President Boris Yeltsin suspended earlier this month. An account today summarized the comments of a high-level Kremlin official, who asked that... MORE

Kazakhstan's Office of the Prosecutor General announced yesterday that it has resumed criminal proceedings against former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin on charges of tax evasion. The proceedings had been suspended several months ago, at which time Kazhegeldin was seeking to become a candidate in the... MORE