Nikolai Sevryugin, who wasgovernor of Tula oblast from 1991 to March 1997, has been arrestedalong with his son on suspicion of taking a $100,000 bribe. Sevryugincame third in the gubernatorial election held in March which waswon by August 1991 coup-plotter Vasili Starodubtsev. (NTV, June7) Volgograd... MORE

Georgianpresident Eduard Shevardnadze has asked Boris Yeltsin to take"effective steps" to enforce a March 28 CIS summit resolutionon Abkhazia, Shevardnadze's office announced yesterday. Shevardnadze'smessage to Yeltsin implied that Georgia would terminate the mandateof the Russian "peacekeeping" force before its July31 expiration date if the troops... MORE

TheChina National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has won an internationaltender for 60 percent of the stock of Kazakstan's Aktobemunaigazoil company. CNPC will invest $4 billion in Aktobemunaigazover a 20-year period, pay an immediate $325 million bonus toKazakstan's government, and spend $82 million on settling thecompany's debts... MORE

Moldovan presidentPetru Lucinschi yesterday made emergency telephone calls to hisRussian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, and to First Deputy PrimeMinister Boris Nemtsov, following a warning from Russia's statemonopoly Gazprom to Chisinau the preceding day. Gazpromannounced that it was cutting gas deliveries by half, effectiveimmediately, until Moldova makes... MORE

A special commissiontold a news conference in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky yesterday thata decommissioned nuclear-powered submarine that sank alongsideits pier last week at a local naval base poses no health threatto the area's population. (Itar-Tass, June 5) The submarine --identified only as having been built in the 1970's... MORE

Moscow continued to pursue its dual approach toward NATO yesterday,as Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov used a speech in Geneva toapplaud the recently signed Russia-NATO Founding Act but then,later in the speech as well as in comments to reporters, reiterateda number of Russia's long-standing criticisms of... MORE

Russia'sForeign Ministry has strongly rebuffed a bill passed on June 4by the Duma that calls for Russia to restore full commercial relationswith Iraq despite international sanctions still in effect againstthe Baghdad regime. The bill, sponsored by the ultra-nationalistLiberal Democratic Party and passed by a vote... MORE

Chechenfirst deputy premier Movladi Udugov has been in Moscow this weekfor talks with Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkinon a deal to provide funds for Chechen reconstruction. There isno provision in Russia's 1997 federal budget for aid to Chechnyaso the two sides have had to... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has expanded the powers of ViktorKondratov, his representative in the troubled Primorsky krai.(Interfax, June 4) Kondratov was appointed to the post at theend of May; he had previously headed the Federal Security Servicein the region. A presidential spokesman said that Yeltsin... MORE

On June5 the Duma voted 288 to 6 to denounce the 1992-96 privatizationprogram as "unsatisfactory." Mullanur Ganeev, the chairmanof a Duma commission set up to examine privatization, describedits results as "chaotic" and "criminal." Hesaid that companies were given away at nominal prices to corruptcliques, meaning... MORE