An organization calling itself the Revolutionary Military Council (Revvoensovet) of the RSFSR (the Soviet-era title of what is now the Russian Federation) has issued a statement claiming that its supporters marked the 80th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution by carrying out acts of sabotage in... MORE

A policeman was killed yesterday morning in the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt, close to the border with Chechnya. (NTV, November 9) This latest murder has exacerbated the already tense situation in the border region. (See Monitor, November 7) A Dagestani government delegation, including the country's... MORE

The Chechen sector of the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline opened on November 9. The deputy president of the Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, Yury Lisin, and the former president of the Chechen Southern Oil Company, Khozhakhmed Yarikhanov, took part in the ceremony on the Chechen-Dagestani border. The... MORE

Protests by workers at the Achisay Polymetal Plant in Kentau, Southern Kazakhstan (see Monitor, November 3), ceased on November 4 as the country's Rehabilitation Bank financed the factory's wage arrears up to August. But the workers' continue to demand guaranteed future payments and the dismissal... MORE

The KGB of Belarus on November 8 released Tamara Vinnikava on recognizance, pending trial. Vinnikava, former chairwoman of the Belarus National Bank, had been in investigative detention since January, 1997, on charges of abuse of office in her earlier capacity as head of the Belarus... MORE

President Yeltsin has set up a new state commission and charged it with coordinating federal policy toward Chechnya. Headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ramazan Abdulatipov, who has responsibility for ethnic affairs in the government, the commission appears set to take over much of the responsibility... MORE

The Russian government and Central Bank will maintain the rate of the redenominated ruble in 1998-2000 at around 6.2 to the dollar, the two bodies said in a joint statement today. (From January 1, 1998, a new ruble will be introduced, equivalent to 1,000 of... MORE

Russia and China announced the signing earlier today of a statement marking the end of a centuries-long border dispute. The document signifies fulfillment of a 1991 Sino-Soviet border treaty and practical demarcation of the 2,800 mile frontier between Russia and China. The statement was touted... MORE

Ukrainian prime minister Valery Pustovoytenko, presidential administration head Yevgeny Kushnaryov, and State Property Fund (SPF) chairman Vladimir Lanoviy have all announced in the last two days that the parliament's November 4 resolution, which purported to suspend industrial privatization, has no legal force; and that the... MORE

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov and CIS executive secretary Ivan Korotchenya yesterday conferred on "strengthening the role of the CIS Council of Heads of Government...delegating to it not only economic functions but also larger political functions in interstate affairs." Only two days earlier, however, Russian... MORE