Russian President Boris Yeltsin has withdrawn the Russian-Moldovan interstate treaty and supplementary protocol from consideration by the Duma, which had withheld ratification. Yeltsin's move effectively lays the treaty to rest (Itar-Tass, January 31). Although it never came to a vote, the treaty had come under... MORE

Lithuania's Mazieikiai refinery--the sole major refinery in the Baltic states--has been idle since January 30. The reason is a simple one: Russia's state company Lukoil has stopped all deliveries of crude oil to Lithuania. Lukoil is in charge of Russia's oil deliveries to the three... MORE

In Chechnya Salman Raduev, who heads the so-called Army of General Dudaev, warned all the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States that his units "will carry out operations in any place" where Abdullah Ocalan, head of Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), may be hiding. The... MORE

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB)--the domestic successor to the Soviet-era KGB--has in recent days stepped up its public campaign against Grigory Pasko. On January 28 the agency released a statement accusing Pasko's defense team and news media of presenting a distorted picture of the Pasko... MORE

The human rights organization Amnesty International yesterday accused Russian authorities of denying Grigory Pasko proper legal representation. Pasko, a military officer and reporter, is being tried by a military court in Vladivostok for treason (see the Monitor, January 26). The organization, in its allegation, pointed... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin showed up today at his Kremlin office for the first time this year. According to presidential spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin, Yeltsin met with his chief of staff and sent a letter to the upper house of Russia's parliament supporting Prosecutor General Yuri... MORE

Although Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov has again denied having presidential ambitions (see the Monitor, February 1), he has nonetheless been putting allies in strategic positions within the government and state apparatus. Primakov not long ago managed to get Georgy Rapota, his former deputy in the... MORE

Sibneft, Russia's seventh largest oil company, controlled by Boris Berezovsky, was raided today by Federal Security Service spetsnaz troops on the order of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office. Also today, General Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov handed in his resignation for health reasons, and checked into the... MORE

Armenian Pan-National Movement (APNM) chairman Vano Siradeghian, whom many considered the most influential figure in that regime until 1998, left Armenia for the Middle East on January 29, purportedly for medical reasons. Only three days before departing, Siradeghian had been at his flamboyant best defending... MORE

The Prosecutor's Office of Tajikistan's Leninabad region has made public some devastating results of its investigation into last November's fighting in that region. At least thirty-eight officials and law enforcement officers are being prosecuted on criminal charges ranging from active support of to passive cooperation... MORE