Yeltsin's meeting yesterday with Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky followed media reports this week that the president, or at least his inner circle, is working up various plans to "neutralize" Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. One Russian weekly magazine reported that the Kremlin was working on a... MORE

Boris Yeltsin had an audience yesterday with Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky at the Central Clinical Hospital, where the Russian president is recovering from a bleeding ulcer. Following the meeting, Yavlinsky was vague about what he and the head of state discussed, first saying they had... MORE

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters yesterday that China and Russia have consulted on the issue of a U.S. proposal to develop a Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system in Asia. The Chinese spokesman provided no details of the Russian-Chinese talks and refused to say... MORE

On the eve of NATO's formally accepting three new member states, Russian politicians yesterday continued to criticize the alliance's enlargement plans. Former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov called enlargement a strategic mistake and an unnecessary burden on taxpayers in the West. He also repeated... MORE

Russia's Gazprom chairman Rem Vyakhirev headed a delegation to Kyiv on March 9-10 to renegotiate prices for Russian gas and the mechanism of Ukraine's debt repayment. At Ukrainian insistence, Gazprom chiefs promised to consider cutting the price of gas from US$80 to, possibly, US$40 per... MORE

According to a series of official communiques (Itar-Tass, March 6, 7), Boris Yeltsin notified the eleven presidents of CIS countries by telephone about his "decisions" to remove Boris Berezovsky and designate Ivan Karatchenya as acting CIS Executive Secretary. However, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze yesterday cast... MORE

During his press conference, Shevardnadze announced his intention to propose a representative of Georgia, or of some country other than Russia, for the post of CIS Executive Secretary. But he predicted that Russia would "block any candidate not nominated by Moscow." Defending the formation of... MORE

Kyrgyzstan's Economics and Finance Ministry announced yesterday a "temporary" moratorium on the country's contribution to the CIS budget. That budget, meager in the first place, supports the CIS joint bodies in Moscow and Minsk. Kyrgyzstan's share for 1999 had been set at only US$1.5 million,... MORE

Presidential spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin says that Boris Yeltsin will veto a bill passed yesterday by the State Duma setting up a council "for the protection of morality" on television and radio. Yakushkin said that the Duma's proposed legislation was an attempt to restrict freedom of... MORE

officials yesterday expressed concern over evidence of growing anti-Semitism in Russia and said that they would raise the issue in upcoming talks between the two countries. State Department spokesman James Rubin pointed to an incident of vandalism directed on March 8 at a synagogue in... MORE