The fourth session of the joint Russian-Chechen commission to prepare a draft treaty began on September 25 at the President Hotel in Moscow, where Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin gave the leader of the Chechen delegation a draft agreement on the mutual delegation of... MORE

It is likely that Moscow had foreseen Grozny's reluctance to sign the draft treaty and Chechnya's readiness to pressure its former colonial power. It is hardly a coincidence that, a day before the beginning of this latest round of Russian-Chechen negotiations, a secret meeting on... MORE

Russian officials continue to deny former Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed's allegations that as many as 100 small nuclear weapons might be missing. Yesterday, Lt. Gen. Igor Volynkin, who heads the Defense Ministry's 12th Main Directorate and is responsible for the security of the military's... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry reacted cautiously yesterday to the announcement in New York on September 23 that Japan and the U.S. had agreed to new guidelines that will expand their long-standing security alliance. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Valery Nesterushkin told reporters that Moscow awaits a clarification... MORE

The Belarusan KGB and Prosecutor's Office announced yesterday that they are extending by another 30 days the pretrial investigation of the Russian ORT Television team, which has been charged with criminal conspiracy to violate the state border. The legal deadline for completing the investigation and... MORE

Azerbaijan's first deputy prime minister, Abbas Abbasov, foreign minister Hassan Hassanov, and defense minister Safar Abiev returned yesterday from an unusual visit to Russia which had lasted at least a week. In the course of the visit the delegation attended the first session of the... MORE

Tajikistan's National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), which was officially inaugurated in Dushanbe on September 15, has yet to begin the actual work of implementing the peace agreements signed in Moscow on June 28. The government side has insisted on postponing the redistribution of government and administrative... MORE

The lawyer for retired Navy captain Aleksandr Nikitin said on September 23 that his client would soon be charged -- for the fifth time. Nikitin was first arrested in February, 1996, on charges of espionage and treason in connection with work he did for the... MORE

A Russian space agency official said yesterday that Russia will continue to operate the troubled Mir station regardless of whether the U.S. decides to send a replacement for Michael Foale, currently manning the station with two Russian cosmonauts. The head of the U.S. space agency,... MORE

The Foreign Ministers of Japan and Russia agreed in New York on September 23 to promote a high-level dialogue aimed at solving the Kuril Islands territorial dispute. That process is to begin with the November meeting in Krasnoyarsk of Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Japanese... MORE