Monitor's correspondent has at hand a leaflet containing the proclamation of the "Dagestani Central Liberation Front." According to the text, this underground organization claims responsibility for the raid on the Russian military unit in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk (see the Monitor, December 23), and... MORE

In a further indication of improving relations between Moscow and Tokyo, Russian officials said yesterday that the two countries are expected to sign a long-negotiated fishing agreement "in a matter of days." (AP, Russian agencies, January 26) The agreement--the topic of arduous negotiations for approximately... MORE

Amid reports that the United States and Britain may be planning military strikes on Iraq, Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday dispatched his special Middle East envoy, Viktor Posuvalyuk, to Baghdad. Posuvalyuk will presumably try to convince Iraqi leaders that they are best served by ending... MORE

One of the most vexing questions troubling the Russian economy is that of capital flight. How is it that a country whose previous year exports exceeded imports by $30 billion must go cap in hand for loans to the IMF? A recent article in "Trud"... MORE

Russian coal miners blocked the Trans-Siberian railway for two hours today to back their demand for $30 million they say they are owed in unpaid wages. This is not the first time the miners have taken this step. Today, however, they were joined by workers... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday outlined a new twelve-point government program and said that he would assign responsibility for each of the twelve tasks to individual ministers. Yeltsin said further that he will require the government to present an account of its progress in a... MORE

Post-factum statements also threw more light on the January 22 summit of the Russia-Belarus Union. As a Russian TV commentator later observed, "it was impossible not to notice the extremely warm rapport between presidents Yeltsin and Lukashenka." Regardless, Lukashenka publicly agreed on the occasion that... MORE

Statements made over the weekend by presidents Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus and Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, and by Kremlin foreign policy coordinator Sergei Yastrzhembsky, provide some explanations for the failure of the January 22 summit of the CIS Customs Union (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan).... MORE

The Russian Navy's 60-year off and on again effort to develop a credible carrier force is apparently off again. On January 23 Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeev said that Russia would not build any more aircraft carriers in the near future. These ships, he said,... MORE

In an apparent reaction to pressure from the U.S., Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on January 22 ordered tighter government controls on Russian military technology exports. Although few details were available, the move reportedly targets so-called "dual-use" items -- that is, technologies that can be... MORE