Chubais also seems set to increase his role in the political movement, Russia's Democratic Choice (RDC), of which former premier Yegor Gaidar has until now been the figurehead. A congress of the RDC, held in Moscow last weekend, saw Chubais quietly taking over the reins... MORE

A delegation of Russian ministry and agency chiefs, led by deputy chief of the presidential administration Vladimir Putin, has returned to Moscow from a fact-finding trip to Krasnodar Krai and the North Caucasus Republics of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. No official documents were signed during the... MORE

Police yesterday arrested a third suspect, identified only as Shanukov, in connection with the murder of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykiya Segodnya [Soviet Kalmykia Today], Larisa Yudina. (Russian agencies, June 17) Two other suspects are already in detention. One is Sergei Vaskin, a... MORE

Latvia's policy toward Russia, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement yesterday, is not only "hypocritical and deceptive" but "revanchist" as well. A resolution the Latvian parliament recently issued is even a "provokatsiya." (Russian agencies, June 17) Revanchism and provokatsiya (the latter denoting a deliberate... MORE

The deadline for the forced relocation of foreign diplomatic missions from Minsk's Drazdy compound expired yesterday. However, according to British and Lithuanian diplomats in Minsk, Foreign Minister Ivan Antanovich informed all missions yesterday that they may continue residing in Drazdy. An official communique of the... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma yesterday decreed a temporary suspension of the mandatory draft into Ukraine's armed forces, National Guard and troops of the Security Service. Initial reports on the decree did not immediately clarify the duration of the suspension. The measure forms part of Ukraine's program... MORE

The spokeswoman of the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) yesterday elaborated on AIOC's arrangements to export "early" oil to Russia's port Novorossiisk on the Black Sea. According to this presentation, Russia's pipeline company Transneft--operator of the Russian, including Chechen, section of the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline--is obligated... MORE

As might have been anticipated, talks in Moscow yesterday between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ended inconclusively. Yeltsin and other Russian officials applauded what they said were considerable concessions made by Milosevic and suggested that the talks represented a breakthrough in... MORE

Yesterday's talks in Moscow began in the morning with a meeting between Yeltsin and Milosevic. They then continued with a subsequent, expanded session attended by Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Defense Minister Igor Sergeev, Foreign Intelligence Service Director Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Boris Yeltsin's foreign policy... MORE

The Russian Duma is reportedly prepared to adopt a resolution condemning any use of force by NATO to resolve the conflict in Kosovo without a mandate from the UN Security Council. According to Duma First Deputy Speaker Vladimir Ryzhkov, all factions in the Duma support... MORE