Sources in Ukraine may have been willing to supply aircraft to both sides in the bitter civil war in Sri Lanka. On August 27 a top Sri Lankan Air Force officer, Vice Marshal Elmo Perera, was removed from his post for allegedly participating in a... MORE

A prominent Russian publisher was shot dead yesterday morning as he left his Moscow apartment building together with his bodyguard. Aleksandr Krutik, 29, headed the Drofa publishing house, which produces about 80 percent of all Russian school textbooks. His killing is believed to have been... MORE

Russian parliamentarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his supporters yesterday picketed McDonald's restaurant on Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow to complain about the invasion of Russia by Western "poison" and to advocate the consumption of "environmentally clean Russian products." Zhirinovsky said his Liberal Democratic Party will demand... MORE

The command of Russia's Pacific Border Guard District announced yesterday that it intends to double its patrols in Russian waters around Sakhalin and the disputed Kuril Islands. The action is aimed at keeping Japanese fishing vessels out of these areas. It follows two separate incidents... MORE

The shoe was on the other foot for the crew of a Russian fishing boat seized with its crew on August 18 by the U.S. Coast Guard. American authorities claim that the Russians had been caught red-handed fishing in U.S. territorial waters in the Bering... MORE

Russia and China reiterated their commitment to a "strategic partnership" during a visit to Moscow this week by a large Chinese delegation under the leadership of Gen. Liu Huaqing, the vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission. Liu held separate meetings on August 25 with... MORE

The governor of southern Russia's Krasnodar krai is conducting a policy toward ethnic minorities that violates the Russian constitution and Russia's international human rights obligations. Moreover, legislation adopted by the provincial legislature is turning the region into an outpost governed by its own laws, many... MORE

Neither the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, nor the impending eastern expansion of NATO has discouraged Russian arms makers from trying to sell their products in Europe. In an article published yesterday in a German weekly, the chief designer... MORE

Long-running negotiations over the uranium industries in three CIS countries apparently concluded in mid-August. Should they come to fruition, the negotiated deals could have important implications for the international uranium market and electricity supplies in Central Asia, and could also have an impact on the... MORE

Ukrainian foreign minister Hennady Udovenko conferred on August 26-27 in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Yevgeny Primakov, and, separately, with Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and presidential administration deputy head Sergei Yastrzhembsky. Both sides described the meetings -- and also talks held the preceding day... MORE