Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbaev today accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldyn, and appointed in his place Nurlan Balginbaev. Nazarbaev also indicated that he will reshuffle the government. Kazhegeldyn had gone last month to Switzerland for treatment of phlebitis and other circulatory problems. He... MORE

Gennady Konyakhin, democratically elected mayor of the Siberian mining town of Leninsk-Kusnetsky, was arrested on his arrival in Moscow yesterday and charged with conspiracy and embezzlement of public funds. Konyakhin, who already has three criminal convictions, is at the center of newspaper charges that criminal... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has removed Ivan Rybkin as presidential representative to the breakaway republic of Chechnya and replaced him with Rybkin's former first deputy, Valentin Vlasov. The change appears to represent not a demotion for Rybkin, who retains his post as secretary of Russia's... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin yesterday pardoned a former Russian diplomat convicted this spring of spying for the CIA. Vladimir Makarov had been sentenced to seven years in prison for espionage activities that began following his CIA recruitment in 1976. The light sentence he received in June... MORE

Russian news agencies reported yesterday that flight tests of the advanced S-32 fighter began on September 25. The plane, with forward-swept wings and many stealth features, is said to be comparable to the U.S. F-22. (Itar-Tass, October 8) Moscow Calls for Broader Participation in Middle... MORE

The Kremlin's efforts to break the U.S. monopoly on Middle East peace-making and to raise Russia's own profile in the region continued yesterday as Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Tarasov restated Moscow's recommendation that Russia, the European Union, and other nations participate along with the U.S.... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament yesterday overrode President Leonid Kuchma's veto of changes to the pension law. The parliament's decision more than doubles the old-age pension minimum to 71 hryvnya monthly, equal to the subsistence minimum; and it instructs the government to increase the Pension Fund's revenues,... MORE

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin briefed the Russian Duma yesterday on the economic results for the first nine months of 1997 and called on parliament to cooperate with the government in adopting the 1998 draft federal budget. The Duma responded with an almost unanimous vote condemning... MORE

Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov has sent a letter to Boris Yeltsin that lays out his view of relations between Moscow and Grozny. As Maskhadov's press secretary noted on October 8, Maskhadov had already made an official statement on resuming the work of the Russian representation... MORE

The chairman of the Russian Duma yesterday told visiting U.S. deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott that the START II nuclear reduction treaty would have been ratified by the Duma during its previous session had NATO abandoned its enlargement plans. Gennady Seleznev said the lower... MORE