Details of Saturday's meeting in Nazran between Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov remain unknown to the public. Not only did the two leaders not conclude any new agreements, they did not even issue a joint statement afterwards. (NTV, RTR, August... MORE

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has flown with his family for a short vacation in Turkey. He intends after that to visit the United States to take part in the congress of the Islamic Committee, of which he is the president. Maskhadov visited the United States... MORE

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov says Chechnya should be allowed to become independent. Luzhkov, who has said this before, was reacting to last week's open letter in which four leading Russian politicians called on the Russian government to change its policy toward the breakaway republic. The... MORE

Stanley Fischer, first deputy managing director of the IMF, expressed satisfaction after a two-day visit to Moscow over the weekend to discuss Russia's implementation of the IMF-agreed austerity program. The IMF wanted to check progress prior to the disbursement of the second $4.3 billion tranche,... MORE

Differences over policy toward Iraq among permanent members of the UN Security Council--and particularly between Russia and the United States--were highlighted yet again last week. On July 29, the United States and Britain stopped the Council from taking action on a Russian resolution that would... MORE

A blockade by coal miners seeking payment of wage arrears is causing an acute energy crisis in Sakhalin, in Russia's Pacific Far East. Some 160 miners and their families have been blocking access to the island's main power station for over a week, and fuel... MORE

The maverick governor of Russia's Primorye territory, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, joined various left-wing political groups on July 31 in opposing a landing by U.S. Marines at a site near the city of Vladivostok. The Marine landing, scheduled to take place on August 6, is part of... MORE

Aleksandr Lebed's Russian People's Republican Party (RNRP) held its third congress in Krasnoyarsk on July 31, and chose Yuri Shevtsov to head the party in place of Lebed, who may not by law combine the post of party leader with that of Governor of Krasnoyarsk... MORE

One of the most senior figures in Russia's diamond industry has been murdered in what police say they think was a contract killing. The body of Aleksandr Shkadov, managing director of Russia's largest diamond processing company, Kristall, and chairman of the Association of Russian Diamond... MORE

The Ukrainian government and a delegation of IMF experts in Kyiv reached on July 31 a preliminary agreement on the conditions for a US$2.2 billion Extended Fund Facility credit program from 1998 to 2001. IMF's management and its Board of Directors will review the proposed... MORE