In a twenty-minute speech at yesterday's celebration, Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov promised to end the crime wave in the republic and free seven kidnapped Russian journalists. There is no doubting Maskhadov is serious. According to Chechnya's Interior Ministry, search parties had almost reached the place... MORE

May 18 was a public holiday in Chechnya to celebrate the peace treaty signed with Russia on May 12. In Chechnya, this is considered the day the war ended. President Aslan Maskhadov marked the occasion by issuing an order to disband all the armed formations... MORE

The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office on May 16 filed charges against Gen. Konstantin Kobets, who had been a deputy defense minister and the military's chief inspector until his post was eliminated. Kobets was accused of financial misdealing and taking a bribe in the form of... MORE

A Russian scientist, arrested in 1994 on charges of spying for the U.S., was sentenced on May 16 to 12 years in prison. Moisei Finkel was a senior researcher at a naval research facility near St. Petersburg. He was accused of passing secrets to a... MORE

Russia and China have reached preliminary agreement to begin joint development of several new types of weapons systems, a Russian Defense Ministry official said on May 18. Without elaborating, the official said that the weapons' projects would be part of a broader program of increased... MORE

The 16 members of the NATO alliance on May 16 formally approved the political agreement negotiated several days earlier by Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov and NATO secretary general Javier Solana. A communique from the alliance also confirmed that the agreement -- officially called the... MORE

In despair because they had not been paid for six months, two coalminers in the Siberian town of Kiselevsk blew themselves up last week in a car packed with explosives. Both men were married with children. (AP, May 16) Charges Filed Against Russian Deputy Defense... MORE

Turkmen president Saparmurad Niazov, Pakistani prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, and top managers of the U.S. UNOCAL and Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil companies signed yesterday in Ashgabat an agreement to build a gas export pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. The 1,400 kilometer-long pipeline,... MORE

Recent disclosures that the Russian military had covertly transferred large quantities of arms to Armenia was reflected in one of the reservations the U.S. Senate tacked on to the CFE Flanks agreement during Wednesday's ratification vote. The Senate mandated that President Clinton report no later... MORE

Sergei Kirienko, formerly the head of the Nizhny Novgorod based Norsi Oil, was appointed First Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy on May 13. He will serve as deputy to First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who last month took over as energy minister following... MORE