Russian deputy foreign minister Nikolai Afanasevsky claimed at a Moscow press conference yesterday that the recent signing of the Russia-NATO Founding act has weakened the case of those Eastern and Central European states that seek membership in the western alliance. In comments sure to be... MORE

On May 22, Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a decree reorganizing the Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the successor organizations of the Soviet KGB. Few details of the reorganization have leaked out so far. The FSB itself insists that it is getting no new... MORE

Prime Minister Arkady Demydenko of Crimea has been elected leader of a new movement, "Crimea is Our Home," which held its first congress in Simferopol over the weekend. (UNIAN, May 31) Kyrgyzstan's Security Minister Challenges Reforms.

The State Security Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Feliks Kulov, yesterday issued an open letter to President Askar Akaev taking issue with the government's decision to privatize state-owned electricity-generating, gas, telephone, and air transport companies. The letter also complained of an alleged lack of "social justice" in... MORE

According to preliminary results, a Communist -- Nikolai Kolomeitsev -- has won the parliamentary by-election in Rostov Oblast with just under 40 percent of the vote. (Interfax, June 2) The by-election was made necessary when Sergei Shakhrai was named as President Boris Yeltsin's envoy to... MORE

Russian procurator general Yuri Skuratov says more than one-third of Russia's prisoners could be released under an amnesty which the law-enforcement agencies plan to submit to the Duma. If parliament gives its approval, 440,000 prisoners could be freed from prison and pre-trial detention. Russia has... MORE

Harold Nicholson, the highest-ranking CIA officer ever caught spying, has cooperated extensively with government investigators and is likely to get less than 24 years in prison rather than a life sentence, federal prosecutors indicated yesterday. Nicholson has told investigators that he started spying in June,... MORE

Russian first deputy premier Anatoly Chubais has reacted with anger to a decision by Harvard University's Institute for International Development to dismiss two professors. The institute acted after the two men, Jonathan Hay and Andrei Shleifer, were accused by the U.S. Agency for International Development... MORE

The presidents of Ukraine and Romania, Leonid Kuchma and Emil Constantinescu, are meeting today on Romania's Black Sea coast to sign a long-overdue treaty of good-neighborly relations and cooperation. Frustrated since 1992 by Bucharest's territorial claims on Ukraine, the treaty was finalized only recently after... MORE

Elections were held on May 31 in the Chechen capital, Djohar-gala, to elect a new major of the city. (Itar-Tass, RTR, AP, May 31) Turnout was high enough to validate the election, though officials reported some violations of voting procedures. Of the twelve candidates for... MORE