New regulations introduced earlier this month could help to liberalize the commercial environment in Ukraine, especially for small firms. However, the preservation of other restrictions on commercial activity and foreign trade suggest that significant progress in liberalization may not be forthcoming in 1998. According to... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry has reaffirmed its view that the incorporation of the Baltic states by the USSR conformed to international law and was a response to the Baltic states' own request. In a letter to Russia's Duma setting out the Ministry's official position, Deputy Foreign... MORE

Russia will soon have to make up its mind over Kaliningrad since countries on either side of the exclave are heading for membership in NATO and the European Union. Poland is in the first wave of NATO-invitees and is expected to join the EU within... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin stated on television yesterday that "if we review the results of 1997, we must frankly acknowledge: we have mismanaged the CIS. Some are now even keen to desert it." Yeltsin made his comment after meeting with Russian deputy prime minister Valery... MORE

Two events in the past week have focused attention on Russia's politically sensitive Kaliningrad Oblast -- a sliver of Baltic coastline sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania but separated from Russia proper. For some time, a heavy flow of private Russian traders has been crossing the... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has told Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov that he should have consulted the president before making his controversial call for preemptive strikes against terrorist strongholds in the north Caucasus. Yeltsin implied, however, that his own position on the issue was close to... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin yesterday named a former fighter pilot, Col. Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, as commander of Russia's Air Forces and Air Defense Forces. The two services are being merged this year. Kornukov had been the commander of the Air Defense troops in the Moscow Military... MORE

First Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov told the newspaper Izvestia in an interview published yesterday that he does not intend to run for president in 2000. He said he sees Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov as the likely favorite of the establishment, and predicted that the position... MORE

Two top Russian diplomats yesterday reiterated Moscow's call for a reshuffling of personnel on UN weapons inspection teams in Iraq so as to lessen the proportion of Americans and Britons. Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, speaking in Sweden, said that greater balance was needed on the... MORE

On January 19, in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian oil companies Yukos and Sibneft signed a letter of intent to merge and form a new conglomerate, Yuksi. The agreement was signed by Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Sibneft first vice-president... MORE