Nine Russian soldiers were wounded in Abkhazia's Gali district during the night of July 22 to 23, when their vehicle ran over a remote-control land mine. Moscow and Abkhazia denounced Georgian "terrorists" for resorting to a "mine war." A similar explosion had killed five Russian... MORE

Kazakhstan's Anti-Monopoly Committee, resurrected in June, is the latest in a long line of agencies that will, in the future, report directly to the president instead of to the government. This institutional rejuggling reflects two possible goals: to draw economic policymaking away from the prime... MORE

Addressing an extraordinary meeting of Kazakhstan's National Security Council (KNB) in Astana on July 10, President Nursultan Nazarbaev declared that state corruption is now a major threat to national security. He criticized law enforcement agencies for failing to wage the fight against corruption as he... MORE

Russia has apparently backed off a bit from its earlier held position that the Kosovo Albanian rebel groups seeking independence from Belgrade should not have a role in negotiations aimed at ending the conflict in the Serbian province. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin told... MORE

There was confusion in Moscow last night as Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko said that President Boris Yeltsin had appointed a Communist, Yuri Maslyukov, to the vacant post of minister of industry and trade. Meanwhile, Maslyukov told journalists that that no one had officially informed him... MORE

Seven of Russia's biggest oil producers warned the government yesterday that IMF-recommended economic policies could provoke popular unrest. (Russian agencies, Reuters, July 22) What they really seemed to mean was that, by vetoing Duma-approved cuts in the profits tax and oil excise tax, the Yeltsin... MORE

There has been yet another attempt on the life of Said Amirov, mayor of Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. Two unknown men fired on the mayor's office yesterday with grenade launchers. Officials managed to get the mayor, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair as... MORE

New prohibitions have been added to those already in force under Chechnya's state of emergency. Republic commandant Aslambek Ismailov has ordered the closure of all private and commercial television and radio companies. Ismailov says this is to prevent "rumors and fabrications" being spread while the... MORE

The Chechen government's campaign against "Wahhabis" in the republic may not be over. Its next victim may be Foreign Minister Movladi Udugov. As Ahmad Kadyrov, the Mufti of Chechnya, told the Monitor, "after Yandarbiev, Udugov is one of the most active proponents of 'Wahhabism' in... MORE

Twenty-six of the most determined pro-reform deputies have announced the formation of a new caucus in the Ukrainian parliament. The group, called Nezalezhni (Independents), consists for the most part of deputies who had not joined any party caucuses in the new parliament until now. These... MORE