President Boris Yeltsin is meeting this morning with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov to fill the outstanding vacancies in Russia's new cabinet. They named Gennady Kulik, a Duma deputy from the Agrarian Party, as deputy premier in charge of agriculture (BBC, September 21). PRIMAKOV SHIES AWAY... MORE

A group of twenty-five leading world banks met in London on Thursday and sent a strongly worded letter to the Russian government both condemning the default on GKO payments and insisting on equal treatment with Russian banks when it comes to repayment. The banks are... MORE

Over the weekend the Russian Central Bank undertook a giant debt-clearing operation in a bid to restart Russia's stalled financial system. At the same time, in a series of statements to the press, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov fleshed out the government's general financial strategy. On... MORE

Georgia's Border Protection Department announced yesterday that the United States is assisting, financially and technically, the development of Georgia's border protection forces. This year, Washington has (1) earmarked a US$20 million credit for those forces' needs, (2) handed over various types of technical equipment to... MORE

Turkmen President Saparmurat Niazov yesterday dismissed Defense Minister Danatar Kopekov, Army Chief of Staff Akmurat Mulkamanov, military intelligence chief Vladimir Efanov and the State Security Committee's First Deputy Chairman Farid Atamuratov. The president also demoted the commander of border troops and other senior officers to... MORE

The Russian government is prepared to transit 2 million tons of crude annually to Europe from the U.S. company Mobil Oil's concession in Turkmenistan. The plan envisages shipping the oil by barge across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to Russia's ports Makhachkala and Astrakhan, putting... MORE

Mykola Syvulskiy, the president of Ukrainian Gas Resource Consortium and the head of a self-styled headquarters for referendum for impeachment of President Leonid Kuchma, was arrested on September 17. Syvulskiy is suspected of illegally transferring 10.4 million hryvnyas of the state-controlled Ukrhazprom company to the... MORE

Clearly piqued when Peru bought seventeen surplus MiG-29 jet fighters from Belarus in 1996, the Russians warned the Peruvians at the time that the deal was not such a bargain, since Russia would provide neither spare parts nor maintenance for the Russian-built planes. But with... MORE

Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek's September 15-16 visit to Poland underscored the two nations' shared interests. Geremek's talks with President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Valery Pustovoytenko and Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk focused on three items: the Odessa-Brody pipeline project to transport Caspian oil to Poland... MORE

John Varoli, an American living in St. Petersburg, cautions that many of the large aid agencies active in Russia "spend too much money, get little done, and rarely make a difference." Varoli speaks from personal experience since he headed a small humanitarian organization directed at... MORE