Col. Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin yesterday was named chief of the General Staff and first deputy defense minister by President Boris Yeltsin. He had been the acting chief of staff for almost a month, following the dismissal of Gen. Viktor Samsonov. Yeltsin also appointed Lt. Gen.... MORE

Residents of the southern town of Kurgon-Tepe yesterday continued a week-long protest rally -- apparently encouraged by Col. Mahmud Hudoiberdiev -- demanding the restoration of Kurgon-Tepe region and its secession from the Hatlon region. Hudoiberdiev, whose rapid deployment brigade is based in Kurgon-Tepe, is now... MORE

Russian deputy prime minister Valery Serov and Belarusan president Alyaksandr Lukashenka's chief of staff, Mikhail Myasnikovich, yesterday signed an agreement whereby Russia is to grant Belarus a 500 billion ruble state credit for use in 1997. Most of the credit is earmarked for Russian-Belarusan joint... MORE

More than 1,000 coal miners have been picketing government buildings in Kyiv since June 17, while local strikes are in progress in some Donbass mines. The Union of Coal Industry Workers, organizer of the protests, is demanding payment of overdue wages amounting to 1.7 billion... MORE

A Chechen parliamentary delegation, headed by Foreign Relations Commission chairman Ahiad Idigov, yesterday completed a visit to the Baltic states where it had hoped to mark the first steps toward international recognition of Chechen independence. In addition to its parliamentary mandate, the delegation was carrying... MORE

The Russian writer Lev Kopelev died in Germany yesterday at age 85. (Reuter, June 18) Kopelev, who had been suffering from heart disease, was the prototype for one of the heroes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, and enjoyed cult status in Germany as a... MORE

Russia's newest fighter design -- the Su-37 -- has made it to Paris after all. It was a no-show when the exhibition opened on June 14 in what Sukhoi officials explained as bureaucratic bungling by the government in Moscow. (See Monitor, June 16) A government... MORE

The commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Gen. Petr Deinekin, said yesterday that Russia had ruled out buying any of the ex-Soviet strategic bombers now belonging to Ukraine, but that it was developing an entirely new bomber that could be in service by 2005. In... MORE

The Kremlin's struggle to reassert control over Russia's regions by making an example of the maverick governor of Primorsky krai, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, took a new twist yesterday when Nazdratenko met for the first time since 1994 with his arch-rival, Vladivostok mayor Viktor Cherepkov. No details... MORE

A second round of talks in Moscow on June 16-17 between Russia and North Korea failed to produce a breakthrough on a new bilateral treaty, but a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the draft document is now 95 percent complete and is expected to... MORE