The man spearheading opposition to the Kremlin's defense reform policies, Duma Defense Committee chairman Gen. Lev Rokhlin, is currently touring the country in an effort to win backing for an organization that he recently founded. Rokhlin has said that the new organization will work to... MORE

The Russian Military Prosecutor's Office reports that 378 servicemen "suffered from bullying" last month, of whom 24 died. In the first 6 months of this year there have been more than 900 servicemen injured and 160 killed in non-combat incidents. (Argumenty i fakty, July 23)... MORE

The Amber Sea-97 naval exercise began yesterday in Lithuanian waters, with the participation of the three Baltic states' nascent naval squadrons and coastal guard. The exercise includes tactical maneuvering, rescue operations, artillery firing, detention of unlawfully intruding ships, and coordination with shore-based artillery and aviation.... MORE

Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze yesterday announced that he has decided to commute all the 54 death sentences currently pending in Georgia to 20 years imprisonment for each of those convicted criminals. (Itar-Tass, July 25) At Shevardnadze's initiative, Georgia has been observing a de facto moratorium... MORE

The museum dedicated to the well-known Georgian writer, Prince Ivane Machabeli, was blown up on July 23 in Tamarasheni, South Ossetia. Local anti-Georgian separatists are suspected. The museum was located in a country house of the Machabeli family, which had once owned much of the... MORE

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, bad boy of Russian politics, has sent an official letter to President Boris Yeltsin offering to buy Lenin's embalmed corpse. Zhirinovsky proposes to take the body touring round the Russian provinces as a kind of peepshow. The Kremlin has not yet responded. (Segodnya,... MORE

Russian voters will go to the polls on Sunday (July 27) to elect a new governor of Irkutsk oblast in east-central Siberia. The election was called after the surprise resignation in April of incumbent governor Yury Nozhikov, the first democratically elected Russian governor to step... MORE

Visiting two privately-run farms in Samara oblast, where he is on holiday, President Boris Yeltsin yesterday reiterated his determination to reject the Land Code that has been approved by both houses of the Russian parliament. Yeltsin objects to the Code because it bans the free... MORE

Russia's Security Council has prepared a draft presidential decree to settle the Ossetian-Ingush conflict in North Ossetia's Prigorodny district. The Security Council's first deputy secretary, Mikhail Mityukov, does not rule out that a meeting could take place between Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Ingushetia... MORE

The Russian military can no longer afford to provide a cheap labor pool for other sectors of the society as it and its Soviet predecessor did in the past. For that reason, the Defense Ministry is planning to shed some of its non-combat components, such... MORE