Official data for the first seven months of 1997 indicate that the Russian economy continues to stagnate. (Russian agencies, August 18) GDP for the January-July period was down 0.2 percent compared to the same period in 1996, despite slight growth in industrial production (1.2 percent)... MORE

Last week negotiators from the U.S., Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine finally agreed in Geneva on the technical specifications of regional ballistic missile defense systems that would not be limited by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The talks took place in the Standing Consultative... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on August 22 launched two days of talks with his Finnish counterpart, Paavo Lipponen. The two men met first in the Karelian city of Petrozavodsk, where they discussed a wide range of issues, including the preservation of forests along their... MORE

The Second World Congress of Tatars will be held in Kazan, capital of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, at the end of this week (August 29-30). Delegates are expected to call for the Tatar language to switch from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. Tatar is... MORE

"Our union with Belarus is extremely important to us... We shall do everything to strengthen our relations," Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin stated yesterday. Chernomyrdin called the detention of ORT TV journalists in Belarus "unacceptable," but blamed it mainly on a failure of intergovernmental communications.... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma announced on August 22 the full composition of Ukraine's reshuffled cabinet of ministers under the country's recently appointed prime minister, Valery Pustovoytenko. Ukraine's foreign partners will find that Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko, Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk, Deputy Prime Minister responsible for economic... MORE

The Georgian "White Legion" guerrilla group has released the three Russian paratroopers it had been holding hostage since August 16, but kept their weapons. The Abkhaz side in return handed over the bodies of two Legion fighters killed by Abkhaz security forces on August 14.... MORE

A convoy of some 550 vehicles transporting an estimated 10,000 tons of pure alcohol -- stopped at the Russian border with Georgia in late July -- has since then apparently grown to 2,000 vehicles. (Itar-Tass, August 21; see Monitor, July 31) Press reports indicating that... MORE

The government of Tajikistan on August 22 met the demands of opposition field commander Rahmon Sanginov and released three fighters from his detachment who had been seized on August 20. Sanginov in return released three Internal Affairs Ministry troopers whom he had captured in a... MORE

President Yeltsin devoted his weekly radio address this morning to space exploration and aviation. He said he realized some Russians may have lost interest in the cosmos, given the problems facing them in everyday life, but that, despite the difficulties now being experienced by Russia's... MORE