Russia has completed the assembly and ground testing of the International Space Station's first component -- the "Functional Cargo Block" -- a sort of space tug which will serve as a hub for assembling the station's segments. An official in charge of the Russian part... MORE

Eduard Shevardnadze signed last week in Rome a military cooperation agreement envisaging Italian training for Georgia's border and coastal guard troops, the Georgian president announced yesterday. Also yesterday Turkey's first deputy chief of staff, Gen. Cetin Dogan, held talks in Tbilisi on cooperation between the... MORE

In an official message yesterday on the third anniversary of the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire, Russian president Boris Yeltsin offered personally to mediate and host top-level negotiations among the parties to the conflict. Only four days earlier, the Russian, U.S., and French co-chairmen of the OSCE's Minsk... MORE

In remarks to Russian parliamentary leaders yesterday, president Boris Yeltsin warned that Russia will "revise" its relations with NATO and the recent agreement with it, if NATO "starts admitting" former Soviet republics such as the Baltic states. The Duma's Communist chairman and opponent of the... MORE

Back in Moscow after a tour of the Russian Far East, Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov warned that the region's isolation from the Russian heartland is provoking separatist sentiments. In particular, he said, the high cost of rail transport makes imports from Pacific rim countries such... MORE

According to figures released on May 14 by Amirzhan Kosanov, press secretary to Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldyn, Kazakstan at the end of 1996 had attracted more per-capita direct foreign investment ($165) than any other CIS economy. (Interfax-Kazakstan, May 14) This figure, which was apparently taken... MORE

All 30 parties to the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty have approved the May 1996 Flanks agreement endorsing Russia's build-up of military equipment in the Caucasus region, but the process went right down to the wire. Azerbaijan, which had expressed its unhappiness over... MORE

Moldovan prime minister Ion Ciubuc, on his first official visit to Romania, turned down Bucharest's proposals on a draft interstate treaty. Ciubuc specifically objected to describing the treaty as one of "fraternity," to bilateral relations as "special" and "privileged," and to Moldova as one of... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma completed a visit to Washington on May 16 during which he co-chaired with Vice-President Al Gore a meeting of the U.S.-Ukrainian interstate commission. Agreements were reached on: -- U.S. technical assistance to help create a "market-based, competitive, transparent, and efficient" gas sector... MORE

One of Russia' most famous Afghan war veterans, Col. Valery Radchikov, has been charged with masterminding the explosion that killed 14 people and wounded 50 in a Moscow cemetery last November. Two Afghan veterans, accused of carrying out the blast on Radchikov's orders, are also... MORE