The An-70 military transport plane, jointly developed by Russia and Ukraine for domestic use and for export, was successfully flight-tested at the Antonov plant's airfield near Kiev on April 24. The plane has four turbo-prop engines and a cruising speed of 700-800 kilometers per hour,... MORE

Armenia's Communist and Social-Democrat parties, the revived Komsomol, the party of defrauded depositors, and leftist nationalist groups united in an "Alliance of National-Patriotic Forces" at a congress in Yerevan on April 26. Their joint program calls for the USSR's restoration, starting with the Russia-Belarus Union,... MORE

The OSCE's Chairman-in-Office, Danish foreign minister Niels Helvig Petersen, has announced the suspension of OSCE monitoring of the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire until the sides provide credible guarantees of the monitors' safety. The announcement did not blame either side. On April 15 the Chairman's personal representative to... MORE

Although it voiced support for the idea of destroying all chemical weapons, the Russian Duma on April 25 decided to postpone until autumn ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). This means that Russia will not be eligible to attend the founding meeting of the... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced after a cabinet meeting on April 25 that the cabinet had agreed on the details of a new tax code that will be submitted to the Duma this week. He said he hoped it could be adopted before the... MORE

Chechen field commander Salman Raduev has claimed responsibility for the April 23 bomb blast that killed two people in a railway station in Armavir, southern Russia. Raduyev, who commands what he calls the "Army of General Dudaev," said in a statement telephoned to the Itar-Tass... MORE

Russia police have detained six people in connection with last year's bomb blast at a Moscow cemetery in which 14 people were killed and nearly 50 injured. (AP, Interfax, April 25; Izvestia, April 26) The explosion, which took place in November during a memorial service... MORE

Nikolai Yegorov, 45, the man who headed Boris Yeltsin's presidential administration from January to July 1996 (when he was replaced by Anatoly Chubais) died over the weekend. As Minister of Nationalities and Yeltsin's adviser on ethnic affairs in 1994-95, Yegorov was a member of the... MORE

Recent official statistical reports from CIS governments indicate that nearly all the CIS countries experienced economic growth in the first quarter of 1997. (Interfax, April 24-26) However, the quality of these data leave a great deal to be desired and, somewhat inexplicably, they show that... MORE

Some 20,000 people -- the authorities admitted to "more than 10,000" -- demonstrated in Minsk on April 26 at the call of the Popular Front and the legitimate parliament, whose leaders marched at the front of the procession. The demonstration commemorated the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear... MORE