Latvia's Foreign Ministry explained Moscow's pressure tactics at a briefing for Western ambassadors yesterday, six days after the incident. Top ministry officials could only regret the fact that some Western news media had in the meantime reflected Moscow's slant in their reporting. The officials expressed... MORE

At a press conference in the State Duma last week the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lev Ernst, said that Russian scientists are moving ahead with plans to clone a human being. The project, with unnamed sources of funding, will begin with... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday called on "the world to act in concert as soon as possible and correct the human rights situation in Latvia." "The Latvian authorities' cynicism is boundless," the statement continued, charging that the country had "turned militant nationalism into state policy, using... MORE

As Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin travels to Washington to make the case for Russia as a reliable business partner, small signs indicate that foreign investors are making progress in securing their rights in the Russian market. Last week, it was reported that the American fast-food... MORE

Russia was a partial dissenter yesterday as the six-nation Contact Group, meeting in London, imposed an arms embargo and leveled other sanctions on Yugoslavia. The action follows a brutal, week-long crackdown by Yugoslav authorities on ethnic Albanians in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The meeting... MORE

Clinton administration officials indicated yesterday that the United States is prepared to expand the number of foreign satellite launches permitted Russia -- in exchange for a crackdown by Russian authorities on leaks of missile technology to Iran. The Russian Space Agency is currently limited in... MORE

Following his talks with Albright, President Leonid Kuchma announced Ukraine's decision to refrain from supplying turbines for Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr, which is being equipped mostly by Russia. Under the plan, which dates back several years, Ukraine's Kharkiv-based Turboatom plant was to act... MORE

The wives of fishermen in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East are angry that the trawlermen's salaries are being paid in vodka. They say that their husbands are always drunk while their families are going hungry. (BBC, March 8) Moscow Warns of Possible Sanctions Against Latvia.

Kremlin spokesman and foreign policy coordinator Sergei Yastrzhembsky warned in two statements over the weekend of possible Russian "economic steps" -- implying sanctions -- against Latvia over the March 3 incident in Riga. (See Monitor, March 5 and 6) Yastrzhembsky said that he and his... MORE

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright delivered in Kyiv on March 6 a "serious warning" regarding problems encountered by some U.S. firms in Ukraine. The warning had been anticipated since Albright announced, in recent congressional hearings, her intention to deliver it in Kyiv on behalf... MORE