State Duma deputy General Andrei Nikolaev, former chief of Russia's Border Service, plans to set up a new political movement called "The Union of People's Power and Labor." Nikolaev told journalists this week that his will be a center-left movement, favoring a market economy with... MORE

Magomedali Magomedov, chairman of Dagestan's State Council, has decided to run for another term as head of the republic. He says he made the decision "out of a sense of responsibility to normalize the situation ... in the republic, and in response to many appeals... MORE

Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko yesterday received 221 votes, just short of the 226 he needed in order to become chairman of the Ukrainian parliament. Pro-presidential ("centrist") and national-democratic ("rightist," including Rukh) deputies boycotted the balloting. It was the eighth round of voting for the... MORE

In a broadcast to the nation yesterday, President Leonid Kuchma termed the economic situation a "crisis," requiring urgent reforms. Since the legislation "can no longer wait until parliament overcomes its paralysis," Kuchma said, he will introduce economic reforms by presidential decrees. The president also cited... MORE

The column of approximately 1,000 coal miners from Pavlohrad, "shock troop" of the coal workers' recent protests, returned home and to work yesterday. They had picketed the presidential, government and parliament buildings in Kyiv until extracting financial concessions to the mining sector as a whole... MORE

Kremlin foreign policy coordinator Sergei Yastrzhembsky announced yesterday that First Deputy Foreign Minister Boris Pastukhov and CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky will jointly undertake a shuttle mediation between Tbilisi and Abkhazia shortly. Pastukhov and Berezovsky have agreed to henceforth "coordinate" their efforts, according to Yastrzhembsky.... MORE

A day after Moscow hosted talks between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Russia and the West appeared yesterday to be headed in different directions on the question of Kosovo policy. Western leaders welcomed the Russian mediation effort, even allowing that it... MORE

Russian lawmakers, meanwhile, continued to criticize the West for its policy toward Kosovo. An appeal adopted by the State Duma yesterday called on the parliaments and governments of European states "to prevent another war in the Balkans" by pursuing a settlement based on "respect for... MORE

The Russian Defense Ministry yesterday denied media reports that some six military satellites had been placed into incorrect orbits. The Kosmos satellites--said to be of the Strela-3 type--were launched on board a Tsiklon-3 booster from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia on June 16. Russian... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin has appointed Anatoly Chubais as his special representative to international financial organizations (RTR, June 17)--an appointment which will be welcomed outside Russia, where Chubais enjoys the confidence of foreign governments and lending institutions. It comes as the Kremlin prepares for next week's... MORE