Two Chechen women, Fatima Taimaskhanova and Aiset Dadasheva, have been charged with planting the bomb at the railway station in Pyatigorsk that last month killed two people and wounded 20. According to the Russian authorities, the two have confessed and have been charged with terrorism,... MORE

Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is in Moscow's elite Central Clinical Hospital after being admitted on May 12 with heart trouble, it was revealed yesterday. A spokeswoman said the 78-year-old writer had not suffered a heart attack and his life is not in danger. (AP, Reuter,... MORE

Gen. Konstantin Kobets, long one of Boris Yeltsin's closest advisors in the military high command, was arrested yesterday and is being held in Lefortovo prison. Kobets is charged with accepting a bribe of more than $200,000 and of illegal possession of weapons. In a radio... MORE

In a surprise move, President Boris Yeltsin this morning sacked Russia's two top military commanders -- Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and General Staff chief Viktor Samsonov. Yeltsin gave both men a public dressing down and complained that they had done nothing to reform the armed... MORE

Russian news sources reported on May 20-21 that a senior officer serving in the central administration of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has defected to the U.S. Reports said that Lt. Col. Oleg Morozov had presented himself and his family to U.S. intelligence officers in... MORE

Chechen field commander Salman Raduev will defy President Aslan Maskhadov's order for all armed guerrilla units in the republic to disarm, his aide, Sultan Mineev, announced yesterday. Mineev said Raduev's "Army of General Dudaev" will instead redeploy from Djohar-gala to the village of Novye Gordali... MORE

Late last year Russia signed an agreement with Uzbekistan under which Russia will import 77,000 tons of cotton in 1997 in return for shipping 400,000 tons of grain to Uzbekistan. This deal enables Russia to meet about half its annual cotton requirement, at a price... MORE

The government of Kazakstan yesterday announced a decision to entrust the management and 90 percent of government-owned shares in the East Kazakstan copper and zinc processing complex to the Samsung-Deutschland company. The company is a German affiliate of South Korea's Samsung. Since 1995 it has... MORE

Moscow and Kiev announced yesterday in separate statements that Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and President Boris Yeltsin will visit Kiev on May 28-29 and May 30-31, respectively. Chernomyrdin will co-chair a meeting of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation and prepare Yeltsin's visit, which... MORE

Iran's state aircraft company will build 60 TV7-117 jet engines under license from the Moscow Aircraft Production Association [MAPO], maker of MiG fighters and Kamov military and civilian helicopters. The agreement, announced on May 16, is said to be worth $145 million. MAPO sources said... MORE