Interested observers both inside and outside Russia speculated yesterday that President Boris Yeltsin's cabinet shake-up is likely to have little impact either on Russia's foreign and defense policies or on the people in charge of implementing them. That, at least, was the message conveyed by... MORE

Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky yesterday described the thirty-five-year-old Sergei Kirienko as "the most likely, strong and possible candidate" for prime minister in the new Russian government. (ORT, March 23) President Boris Yeltsin yesterday named Kirienko acting prime minister and gave him two weeks (until Yeltsin's... MORE

Abkhazia's self-styled president and prime minister, Vladislav Ardzinba and Sergei Bagapsh, were official participants in the meeting of presidents of the Russian Federation's republics and regions of the North Caucasus, held on March 20 in Rostov na Donu (Russia). Abkhazia was the only participant from... MORE

Kazakhstan on March 20 sent back to Iran the three Iranian citizens who had been arrested on February 24 in Almaty on charges of espionage. Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry stated in a diplomatic note that the three Iranians were being released as a gesture of goodwill,... MORE

Presidents Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and Petru Lucinschi of Moldova, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin along with a high-powered Russian delegation, and Transdniester leader Igor Smirnov conferred on March 20 in Odessa on ways to break the deadlock in the negotiations to settle the Transdniester... MORE

The "Zviadist" former Finance Minister Guram Absandze was extradited by Russia to Georgia on March 20 as a suspect in the February 9 assassination attempt against Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. Georgia's First Deputy Prosecutor-General Revaz Kipiani, who escorted Absandze to Tbilisi, stated upon his return... MORE

Emerging from top-level political talks on Transdniester conflict settlement (see below), Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev stated that Russian troops will remain in that part of Moldova "until the differences over a political settlement have been fully resolved." Sergeev drew an analogy between the open-ended... MORE

In typical fashion, Lukashenka's government treated the zaichik's collapse as a political problem rather than an economic one. Lukashenka sought to pin the blame on his enemies in Moscow by arguing on March 17 that: "The collapse of the Belarusan ruble occurred not in Belarus,... MORE

More than 10,000 mostly young people marched yesterday in central Minsk to mark the 80th anniversary of the independent Belarus Republic. Yesterday's demonstration, organized mainly by the Popular Front and the Young Front, featured speakers who decried the political support shown to "the current Belarusan... MORE

The fragility of Belarus's "economic miracle" was underscored on March 13 by a collapse of the Belarusan ruble on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX). Belarus's "black Friday" and the panicky reaction by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime that both followed the serious external problems facing... MORE