Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov carried the day on July 22 when he and First Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov traveled to Nemtsov's home territory, Nizhny Novgorod, for the inauguration of the region's new governor, Ivan Sklyarov. Sklyarov was elected earlier this month to the post vacated... MORE

In an article published on July 22 by the daily Segodnya, one of Russia's best known and best connected defense journalists savages the military reform program now being drafted and implemented by the government. According to Pavel Felgengauer, President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected decree "On Emergency... MORE

While members of the armed forces continue to be driven to suicide -- as when an officer in the financial section of the Moscow Military District set himself on fire on July 19 -- many others seem to be simply walking off the job. On... MORE

France's cultural attache was critically injured by criminals in downtown Vilnius, and other Westerners have also been assaulted or robbed in Lithuania's capital over the past few days. The series of incidents highlights an increase in criminal activity in the city and the failure of... MORE

The command of Russia's Black Sea Fleet says it is completing on schedule the handover to Ukraine of 52 ships and approximately 100 coastal installations in the Crimea. The handover operation is due to be completed on July 25 for the ships and on August... MORE

The military board of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan has sentenced an officer of the country's air defense forces to death as an agent for Armenia. Karen Barashev, a native of Baku of mixed Armenian and Talysh parentage who served with the ex-Soviet troops in... MORE

Azerbaijan's state security minister, Namig Abbasov, has rejected a Russian assertion that the two countries had agreed on the return of Russian border troops to Azerbaijan. Abbasov, whose ministry supervises Azerbaijan's border troops, stated that such a step is "out of the question" and that... MORE

President Imomali Rahmonov yesterday chaired a special session of the heads of "power" ministries, military and security force commanders, and veteran Popular Front commanders still loyal to him. The session's participants discussed a mutiny launched in western and southern Tajikistan on July 20 by the... MORE

Returning from his U.S. visit (see yesterday's Monitor), Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze yesterday indicated that he has obtained firm U.S. support for, and likely Russian consent to, UN Security Council authorization of an international peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia. Tbilisi, for its part, will tolerate the... MORE

Azerbaijani president Haidar Aliev conferred yesterday in Baku with Zbigniew Brzezinski on regional security, Caspian oil issues, and Aliev's impending visit to Washington. Aliev told Brzezinski that "the access of U.S. companies and investments to the energy-rich Caspian region has become possible through Azerbaijan... Your... MORE