On the third anniversary of the Budennovsk hostage drama, former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin visited the North Caucasus city and apologized to its residents for the failure of his government to defend its citizens. (NTV, June 14) On June 14, 1995, a detachment led... MORE

It took five days for agents from the North Ossetian and Ingush Interior Ministries to secure the release of five Ingush hostages seized on a bus bound for Ossetia's capital Nalchik from the Ingush capital Nazran (see the Monitor, June 10). The five were freed... MORE

Chechnya's acting Prime Minister Shamil Basaev has threatened to block the Chechen sector of the oil pipeline linking Azerbaijan and the Black Sea, unless Russia delivers promised funding by the end of this month. Basaev said Russia has not complied with any of the agreements... MORE

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and nine supporting countries signed on June 12 a plan to establish the Baltic Defense College (Baltdefcol), and another plan to create the Baltic Naval Squadron (Baltron). The signing took place at NATO headquarters in Brussels during the meeting of the Euro-Atlantic... MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov paid a six-hour visit to Lithuania on June 13. Primakov described the mere fact of the visit as a demonstration that Russian-Lithuanian relations are "much better than relations with the other two Baltic countries." Estonia and Latvia, in his view,... MORE

Officials in Transdniester, the breakaway region of Moldova, announced today that the representative of Russia's ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky was gunned down in his Tiraspol office. The official, Aleksandr Saidakov, headed the Transdniester branch of Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia. According to Russia's Radio Mayak,... MORE

Receiving in Minsk a high-level Yugoslav parliamentary delegation, Belarusan President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Council of the Republic chairman Pavel Shypuk described NATO's plan for a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo as "absolutely unacceptable." Obliquely comparing Serb-dominated Yugoslavia to the former USSR, Lukashenka stated that "we have... MORE

The NATO-Ukraine Commission met on June 12 at the level of defense ministers. The meeting, the first at this level, marked one year since the signing of the NATO-Ukraine Charter of Distinctive Partnership. The ministers discussed plans of the Joint Working Group on Military Reform... MORE

All thirteen members of the "Labor" group of deputies staged a walkout from the Georgian parliament on June 12. The sixteen members of the Socialist group of deputies had done so one day earlier. The thirty-strong Revival group of deputies, representing Ajaria, had walked out... MORE

Karabakh president Arkady Gukasian on June 13 nominated Deputy Prime Minister Jirair Pogosian for the post of prime minister. The nomination was announced at a joint news conference by Gukasian, Pogosian, Defense Minister Samvel Babaian, and Parliament Chairman Oleg Yesaian. This lineup suggested that the... MORE