Slovakia has apparently decided to significantly curtail its acquisitions of Russian military hardware, and would also like to revise an earlier US$150 million contract under which the country was to have purchased Russian S-300 air defense missiles. As the Russian newspaper "Kommersant daily" noted sourly... MORE

Kremlin officials yesterday denied reports that President Boris Yeltsin had cut short his surprise visit to Jordan for health reasons. The Russian leader, who defied his doctors in attending the funeral of the late King Hussein, spent less than six hours in Amman and another... MORE

Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov announced on February 5 that Azerbaijan will not prolong its membership in the CIS Collective Security Treaty. Khalafov represented his country at the Moscow meeting of the CIS member countries' Council of Foreign Ministers, some of whom sent deputies rather... MORE

Boris Pratskevich, identified as department chief of Russia's military counterintelligence, has accused the Baltic states' services of "actively" supporting U.S. and NATO intelligence-gathering aimed at the Russian navy. In an interview distributed over the weekend, Pratskevich alleged that the methods include infiltration of agents (which... MORE

A well-organized group of fifteen to twenty young people--supporters of the Russian National Unity (RNE) fascist movement of Aleksandr Barkashov--viciously beat up three representatives of the Belarusan democratic opposition on February 5 in downtown Minsk. Some of the attackers wore swastika armbands and other RNE... MORE

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has imposed full Sharia rule in Chechnya. According to decrees he signed on February 3, all laws in Chechnya must now conform to the norms of the Koran and Sharia. The parliament no longer will have a law-making function, but will... MORE

As the Monitor has reported, the Moscow Arbitration Court recently placed Russian Public Television (ORT)--which is 51 percent state owned but widely thought to be controlled by CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky--under outside management. The court rendered its verdict despite the fact that President Boris... MORE

A Russian diplomat brought what was described as an otherwise celebratory NATO conference in Munich to a gloomy close yesterday when he loudly restated Moscow's objections to the alliance's enlargement plans. Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Gusarov reportedly accused NATO--led by the United States--of being intent... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin, for months an increasingly negligible force in Russian foreign policy, defied his doctors and surprised his detractors when he flew to Amman earlier today at the head of a Russian delegation attending the funeral of Jordan's King Hussein. "I came to pay... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry has reacted sharply to a reported U.S. State Department confirmation that Washington has threatened to cut aid to Russia if Moscow pursues arms dealings with Syria. "We do not recognize the extraterritorial nature of American laws," ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin told reporters... MORE