On April 29, Russia separated itself from its Western partners on the Contact Group by refusing to endorse fresh sanctions imposed by the Group on Yugoslavia. The sanctions, agreed upon after a long and arduous negotiating session in Rome, included an immediate freeze of Yugoslavia's... MORE

Russia's Gazprom natural gas monopoly has apparently agreed to accept Belarusan government bonds as compensation for a major part of the $270 million in arrears that Minsk has accumulated for gas imports. (Russian agencies, April 21) As such, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's governments seems to have... MORE

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev may have spoken for most of the other heads of CIS states when he described yesterday's summit as "totally empty" and "leading nowhere." The meeting was held in the long shadow of the October 1997 Chisinau summit, at which almost all... MORE

Customs data reported by the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (excluding individual traders) during the first two months of 1998 indicate that Russia's trade with other CIS countries increased by some 3.7 percent, relative to the same period in 1997. Along with a 1.3 percent... MORE

By appointing Viktor Khristenko as one of only three deputy prime ministers and instructing him to occupy himself exclusively with center-periphery relations, Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko has made it clear that his government intends to set relations with Russia's headstrong regions on a new footing.... MORE

Russia's government crisis ended as it began: with the successful placement of a Eurobond on the international capital markets. The theatrics that ended with Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko's confirmation as prime minister last week did not prevent the Russian government from placing a 500 billion... MORE

Vladimir Rakhmanin, named the Russian Foreign Ministry's chief press spokesman earlier this month, said yesterday that Moscow is keeping a close eye on recent developments in Japanese-U.S. defense ties. Rakhmanin also said that Moscow has consulted with both Washington and Tokyo on the issue. Moscow... MORE

Russia's new prime minister Sergei Kirienko says the federal government will continue the policy of negotiating power-sharing treaties with the regions that has become the hallmark of Russia's federal system. In an interview with one of Tatarstan's leading newspapers, Kirienko said the treaties have proved... MORE

The director of the Russian state arms trading company Rosvooruzhenie announced on April 28 that Russia will deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missile complexes to the Greek Cypriot government in August. If the delivery takes place, it will consummate a $200 million deal signed in January of... MORE

A pair of top Russian officials on April 28 denied a recent New York Times report alleging that Moscow is helping India develop a sea-launched ballistic missile. (See Monitor, April 28) Yevgeny Ananev, director of the Russian state arms trading company Rosvooruzhenie, told reporters that... MORE