Following consultations at NATO headquarters in the 16 + 1 (NATO + Ukraine) framework, National Security and Defense Council head Volodymyr Horbulin outlined the approved plan of cooperation between Ukraine and the alliance for the 1999-2001 period. Going well beyond Partnership for Peace, and reflecting... MORE

The leader of the Hromada parliamentary faction and former premier, Pavlo Lazarenko, was detained Wednesday evening in Basel, Switzerland when he tried to cross the French-Swiss border with a Panamanian passport. Lazarenko was escorted for interrogation to Geneva, whose authorities sanctioned his detention. Lazarenko was... MORE

As a result of lobbying by the Russian delegation, the OSCE's annual ministerial conference yesterday issued a statement on Kosovo which blamed neither Yugoslav nor Serb authorities for violence in the war-torn republic. The conference instead issued a bland statement deploring the suffering in Kosovo... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin has signed a decree setting a commission for the socioeconomic development of the North Caucasus. According to the official statement announcing the new commission, its goals are to carry out a unified state policy for the region's socioeconomic development and on coordinating... MORE

Word that the Russian lawmakers had attached a series of conditions to their new draft ratification bill--conditions under which Moscow would claim the right to withdraw unilaterally from the START II treaty--first surfaced late last month. One of those conditions stipulates that Moscow would withdraw... MORE

In a move likely to be applauded in Washington, Russian lawmakers yesterday moved a step closer to considering ratification of the START II treaty. A series of conditions which the lawmakers have attached to the treaty could, however, raise tensions anew with the United States.... MORE

Ruslan Linkov, the aide to murdered State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova, who himself was severely wounded in the shooting attack last month, has given interviews to several media outlets. Linkov, who is still being treated in the hospital for gunshot wounds to the head and... MORE

Elections for St. Petersburg's legislative assembly are set for Sunday, December 6, and the campaign in Russia's second city continues to be characterized by dirty tricks and scandals. On Thursday night (December 3), NTV television reported that candidates have been buying votes from the city's... MORE

With the OSCE likely to issue major decisions at its year-end meeting (see the CIS section above), Azerbaijan is exposing a newly developed gap in the OSCE's credibility as a conflict-resolution body. According to Azerbaijan's influential presidential adviser on foreign policy, Vafa Guluzade, the OSCE's... MORE

The economic crisis currently engulfing Belarus also threatens to demolish President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's political standing. Lukashenka's claim to have maintained economic stability through state-socialist methods has long been the central political prop of his rule. That thesis is now collapsing along with the economy. Inflation,... MORE