Marking the fifth anniversary of the nominally "CIS collective peacekeeping" troops in Tajikistan, their current commander, Lieutenant-General Nikolai Pugachev, implied that the troops would remain in the country even after the settlement of the civil conflict. According to Pugachev, Tajikistan will need the Russian troops... MORE

Azerbaijan's Central Electoral Commission announced today that Haidar Aliev has been reelected to another five-year term as president of the country. According to provisional returns released this morning, Aliev received more than 70 percent of the votes cast in yesterday's first round of the presidential... MORE

On October 9, clarifying and enlarging his October 6 offer to the Serbian military (see the Monitor, October 7), Belarusan President Alyaksandr Lukashenka volunteered to deliver "up-to-date air defense and antimissile systems" to Yugoslavia. The arms, Lukashenka said, would enable Yugoslavia to "fittingly rebuff" a... MORE

Purporting to cite its embassy's reports from Belgrade, the Belarusan Foreign Ministry claims that Lukashenka is being regarded as a "national hero of Serbia" for his supportive stand. The Serbs "would not have expected that this country and its leader would be the first to... MORE

Moscow also brought its objections to Western strikes on Yugoslavia to NATO headquarters in Belgium. At an ambassadorial level meeting of the Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council (a body established by the Russia-NATO Founding Act) on October 9, Moscow's representatives reportedly continued to argue for a... MORE

As marathon talks between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke proceeded without apparent success over the weekend, Russian leaders intensified their already frenetic efforts to stop proposed NATO air strikes on targets in Serbia and Kosovo. The bluntest warning came from... MORE

The Russians have placed great store on foreign sales of their sophisticated S-300 air defense missile system, which they claim is far superior to the comparable U.S. Patriot system. Both are designed to destroy medium- and short-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft. Last Friday... MORE

During an official visit to Uzbekistan on October 11, Yeltsin canceled two welcoming ceremonies--leaving Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin to explain that the head of state had caught a cold during a "difficult flight" from Moscow and to add that "[n]othing extraordinary ha[d] happened." Yeltsin reportedly... MORE

Various officials have been offering their own plans for dealing with the beleaguered ruble. Deputy Prime Minister Vadim Gustov said last week that he backed the idea of introducing a second, gold-backed currency in parallel with the depreciating ruble, similar to the "chervonets" issued by... MORE

Kommersant daily led its October 10 edition with an article headlined: "Chubais returns." According to the newspaper, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's meeting on October 8 with Chubais--the architect of Russian privatization who currently heads United Energy Systems, the country's electricity monopoly--set the groundwork for Chubais'... MORE