On October 2 Komsomolskaya pravda ran an article accusing Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of signing an order in June granting government guarantees for loans worth $140 million to the Media-Most group to fund the launch of TV satellites. Komsomolskaya pravda, which is financed by Vladimir... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and defense minister Igor Sergeev each called yesterday for NATO's transformation from a military organization into a political one. Chernomyrdin's remarks came during an appearance before the Dutch parliament, Sergeev's upon his return to Moscow from a meeting of NATO... MORE

The Russian Foreign Ministry appeared to express satisfaction yesterday with explanations from Tokyo and Washington regarding the September 23 signing of a Japanese-U.S. agreement strengthening bilateral military cooperation. (See Monitor, September 26) According to the ministry's chief spokesman, Valery Nesterushkin, the two sides had made... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday criticized the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia for a September 30 operation in which SFOR troops seized four Bosnian-Serb television transmitters. A ministry spokesman warned that the action could provoke a new spiral of confrontation among the Bosnian Serbs. (Russian... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin was full of energy yesterday as he visited the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod. There, he created a sensation by hinting that he may run for a third term in office. His response to journalists asking whether he intended to run... MORE

Russian authorities admitted for the first time yesterday that Iran had tried to obtain missile technology from Russian companies. A spokesman for the country's domestic counter-intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), conceded to reporters that Russian authorities had been forced to respond on an... MORE

President Yeltsin and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais addressed a meeting of the Council on Local Government on September 30 and told the gathering of regional and local leaders that, in the future, fixed norms will reduce the dependence of local authorities on federal... MORE

Thanks to good weather and a slight increase in fertilizer use, this year's grain harvest in Russia is expected to reach 82-83 million tons, compared to 69 million tons last year. (Reuter, September 29) These figures still compare unfavorably with the peak harvest of 128... MORE

All three legs of Russia's nuclear triad -- sea-, land-, and air-based strategic nuclear weapons -- will have been tested when the three-day strategic military exercise "Redukt-97" ends today. The test firings have included submarine-launched ballistic missiles launched from Northern Fleet submarines in the Barents... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday blocked Belarusan president Alyaksandr Lukashenka's visit to the Russian regions of Lipetsk and Yaroslavl, scheduled for October 2-4. Yeltsin ordered the Russian air control system to deny access to Lukashenka's plane. Explaining his action to journalists, Yeltsin claimed that Lukashenka... MORE