Japanese news agencies reported late last week that Russian President Boris Yeltsin has rejected a Japanese proposal which calls for the eventual return of the four disputed Kuril Islands to Japan. Yeltsin reportedly delivered the message to the Japanese during a summit meeting with Japanese... MORE

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, who heads a government commission which oversees Russia's military and technical cooperation with foreign countries, reacted to the U.S. sanctions decision in a more even-handed manner than did some of his colleagues, however. While suggesting that the U.S.... MORE

Official Moscow has reacted with anger in recent days over a decision made by the U.S. last week to implement sanctions against Russian institutes accused of improper dealings with Iran. The U.S. sanctions involve ten Russian institutes of various types, each accused by Washington of... MORE

Russia's Internal Affairs Minister, Sergei Stepashin, announced yesterday the arrest in Moscow of a citizen of Uzbekistan, suspected of involvement in the February 16 terrorist bombings in Tashkent. Also yesterday, security agencies in Russia's republic of Dagestan (North Caucasus). announced the arrest of three armed... MORE

Armenia's Internal Affairs and State Security Ministry, which has yet to resolve the series of spectacular assassinations of senior and lesser Armenian officials (see the Monitor, December 11, 1998, and February 10, 1999), claims to have scored an entirely different kind of achievement. The minister,... MORE

On February 24-25 in Kyiv, President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Valery Pustovoytenko discussed with Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek a set of ambitious plans designed to tie Ukraine closer to Poland and, through it, to Western Europe. The plans include: (1) constructing an import... MORE

The Baltic Defense College (BALTDEFCOL), a Western-supported institution of the three Baltic states, officially opened its doors yesterday in Tartu, Estonia to a speech by the host country's president, Lennart Meri. Senior defense officials from most NATO and Nordic countries attended the ceremony. Those countries... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka yesterday described the removal of nuclear weapons from post-Soviet Belarus as "a great mistake," and suggested bringing nuclear weapons back to Belarus as part of defense arrangements of the Russia-Belarus Union. Lukashenka was speaking to the press on his arrival in Moscow... MORE

Prosecutors questioned former Central Bank chairman Sergei Dubinin yesterday in connection with their probe into alleged corruption at Aeroflot, Russia's state airline. Law enforcement sources reportedly said that Dubinin had been summoned to the Prosecutor General's Office to answer questions concerning the Central Bank's decision... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov appeared together before the television cameras yesterday to complain about the persistent press rumors that Primakov is already running for the presidency. Following a Kremlin meeting between the two men, Yeltsin noted that last September, when Primakov... MORE