This week's summit meeting between the French and Russian presidents and the German chancellor will be held in Moscow rather than Yekaterinburg as originally planned. Announcing the change last week, President Yeltsin's spokesman said the decision was taken on the advice of Yeltsin's doctors. He... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry reacted angrily last week to comments by the U.S. ambassador to Russia, James Collins, indicating that Washington supports Tokyo in the Russian-Japanese dispute over the Kuril Islands. Collins was said to have made the remarks on March 19 during a visit to... MORE

Aleksandr Lebed, the Russian general turned presidential contender, completed an eleven-day visit to the United States on March 20 during which he questioned President Boris Yeltsin's fitness to manage Russia's nuclear arsenal. In remarks made on March 19 before a House subcommittee, Lebed suggested that... MORE

In a nationwide television address this morning. President Boris Yeltsin said he was dismissing the entire Russian government, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin included. Saying the present team lacks dynamism and initiative, Yeltsin said Russia needs a new team to deliver tangible results. He promised to... MORE

President Nursultan Nazarbaev says that, when he next meets Russia's President Boris Yeltsin, he will press Russia to pay the $460 million it owes in rent for Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome. (Russian agencies, Panorama [Almaty], March 13) Russia has paid no rent since signing a lease... MORE

Signs of confusion within the Chechen leadership were evident yesterday, as the head of the government's antiterrorism unit, Khunkar Israpilov, broadcast a radio appeal for "holy war" against "pseudo-Islamic bandits." Addressing a hastily convened press conference, Chechnya's President Aslan Maskhadov dismissed Israpilov's allegations, saying the... MORE

On March 22, Moldova will elect a new parliament for a four-year term. The country entered the electoral campaign while in a state of economic crisis, political drift, territorial dismemberment and vulnerability to Russian pressure through Transdniester -- the last European area under unlawful foreign... MORE

Russian diplomats were active on more than one front yesterday as Moscow moved to parry calls for sanctions on Yugoslavia. At the UN, Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov announced Russia's opposition to any proposed Security Council actions against Belgrade over Kosovo. According to diplomats at the... MORE

Russian diplomats quietly claimed a diplomatic triumph yesterday as Western powers deferred until next week a decision on new sanctions against Yugoslavia. Yesterday's developments followed talks in Belgrade between the German and French foreign ministers on the one hand, and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin's latest illness has been greeted with curious equanimity in Western capitals. No such calm exists in Moscow, where the rumor mill is in full swing. Word is out that, due to chronic illness -- depression, Parkinson's disease or just plain flu --... MORE