Moscow appears to have moved quietly over the past several days to mend relations with the United States in the wake of last week's U.S.-British air strikes on Iraq. Russia's ambassador to the United States, Yuli Vorontsov, returned to Washington yesterday. He had been recalled... MORE

The State Duma today is debating the draft 1999 budget which the government of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov has submitted for approval. The budget already appears to be in big trouble. While the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) had promised to support the... MORE

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and the KPRF's Duma faction made public Wednesday (December 23) an open letter addressed to Nikolai Bordyuzha, head of the Kremlin administration and Security Council secretary, and Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov, on the issue of ethnic and religious intolerance. At first... MORE

Although President Nursultan Nazarbaev's reelection seems a foregone conclusion of the January 10 presidential balloting, international monitors will carefully watch the conduct of the electoral process as it affects Nazarbaev's three underdog competitors. One of these is senator Engels Gabbasov, 41, a professional writer with... MORE

Karabakh's politically powerful defense minister, Lieutenant-General Samvel Babaian, made a few interesting revelations in a December 21 speech to faculty and students of Yerevan University. He demanded that Karabakh annex from Azerbaijan not only the Lachin district (a longstanding demand) but also the Kelbajar district--as... MORE

Vladimir Zhirinovsky and a delegation of his ultranationalist Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) of Russia visited Moldova's secessionist region of Transdniester on December 21-22. In both an address to the region's Supreme Soviet and other public appearances, Zhirinovsky encouraged the Transdniester leadership to seek the status of... MORE

President Eduard Shevardnadze announced on December 21 that Russian border troops have completed the handover of a major sector of the Georgian-Turkish land frontier to Georgian border troops. The sector, in the Akhalkalaki district, lies between the Georgian-Armenian border sector to the east and the... MORE

On December 22, former Ukrainian Premier Pavlo Lazarenko made his first public appearance after his release on bail from a Geneva prison last week. Lazarenko is charged with embezzlement and money-laundering at home and in Switzerland (see the Monitor, December 4, 7, 8, 22). Addressing... MORE

The bandits who kidnapped and later decapitated four Western engineers working with the British company Granger Telecom are demanding US$2,000 ransom for each of the bodies. Russian Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin commented on the ransom demand: "These bandits have lost the elementary sense of morals,... MORE

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed yesterday that the participants in a CIS defense ministers' meeting had "denounced" U.S. and British air strikes against Iraq as an "act of aggression which seriously aggravated the military-political situation in the world." According to Russia's Defense Ministry, this represents an... MORE