Russian president Boris Yeltsin failed to keep his promise to obtain the release of ORT TV journalist Pavel Sheremet from Belarus, today's Izvestia observes in a front-page commentary on Yeltsin's September 6 Moscow meeting with Belarusan president Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Following the meeting, both presidents said... MORE

The joint military exercise "Cooperative Best Effort-97" began yesterday at Latvia's Adazi military base. Some 400 ground and airborne troops, most of them from the U.S, the Baltic states, and Ukraine are involved. The scenario envisages a peacekeeping operation to localize a conflict between two... MORE

Chechen authorities have reacted angrily to news that Russia's prosecutor general has opened a criminal investigation into last week's public executions of two convicted murderers in Djohar-gala. Chechen vice president Vakha Arsanov told a Russian radio station that Chechnya is seeking the extradition from Russia... MORE

Retired Lt. Gen. Aleksandr Lebed explained yesterday that he had learned of the Russian military's Atomic Demolition Munitions (ADMs) in September and October of last year while he was serving as Secretary of the Russian Security Council. Lebed recently charged that some of these small... MORE

Having caught up on most of its wage payments to the military and civilian personnel in the armed forces, the Russian government is now grappling with the its enormous debt to the country's defense plants. An unnamed government spokesman yesterday put this debt at 15.1... MORE

In a statement released by his press secretary, Russian president Boris Yeltsin on September 5 condemned the deadly terrorist attack launched one day earlier on a busy pedestrian street in Jerusalem. Yeltsin urged that the "forces of terror and extremism" not be allowed to disrupt... MORE

The first-ever summit meeting between the European Union and Ukraine, held in Kyiv on September 5-6, marked a political milestone but produced disappointing results. Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, current holder of the EU's rotating chairmanship, and EU Commission chairman Jacques Santer, who is... MORE

The affair of the truck convoy that was allegedly attempting to smuggle pure alcohol across the Georgian border and that has been stopped by Russian border authorities for some weeks (see the Monitor, July 31, August 25) has acquired new gravity. In addition to becoming... MORE

The Tajik government yesterday blocked the scheduled arrival in Dushanbe of opposition leaders for the inaugural session of the National Reconciliation Commission. Even as the opposition delegation, headed by chairman Saidabdullo Nuri, was about to take off from Tehran airport aboard a Tajik government plane,... MORE

Only presidents Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, Petru Lucinschi of Moldova, and Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan took up Russian president Boris Yeltsin's invitation to attend the celebrations of the 850th anniversary of the city of Moscow. Other presidents were otherwise engaged (see Baltic section below). Presidents... MORE