The Russian Duma is preparing a hostile reception for government plans to revise the 1997 budget. First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais will present to a government meeting on 25 April a plan to boost tax receipts by 30 trillion rubles and to cut federal... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on April 21 restated Moscow's adamant opposition to NATO enlargement, but, following talks with Czech leaders in Prague, suggested that the Kremlin would not let differences on that issue impede bilateral trade or broader political relations. During a press conference... MORE

A Russian Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Moscow would not join European countries in their diplomatic actions against Tehran. (Interfax, April 22) The EU action, which involved a recall of ambassadors from Iran, came in response to an April 10 court ruling in Germany... MORE

Speaking on Chechen television, field commander Salman Raduev said that the Chechens, and not the Russians, were responsible for the April 11 attempt on his life. Raduev also accused Chechnya's present leaders of caring less about the liberation of the motherland than about "the struggle... MORE

An interview recently given to Interfax by an anonymous expert associated with the Belarusan National Bank (BNB) suggests that the Belarusan monetary authorities anticipate that integration with Russia could help impose financial discipline on Minsk. (Interfax Belarus Economic News Report, April 14) According to the... MORE

The parliament of Kyrgyzstan has demonstrated a "prudent attitude" toward the plan to create a Russia-Belarus Union, a senior parliamentarian stated yesterday. Human Rights and Nationalities Commission chairman Dooronbek Sadyrbaev said that any implicit approval of that plan "might arouse displeasure on the part of... MORE

An analysis published in the current issue of the Moscow weekly Itogi finds that Russia's policy toward the Baltic states is "best characterized by the term 'post-colonial stress.'" The term has been used by Estonian foreign minister Toomas Ilves and connotes an inability to adjust... MORE

In the Kremlin on May 8 Ukraine will co-sign the memorandum on the principles of settling the Transdniester conflict, but Kiev retains serious reservations about the document, according to President Leonid Kuchma's representative to the negotiations, Yevhen Levitsky. Interviewed in Chisinau yesterday, Levitsky faulted the... MORE

A bizarre stand-off between Russia's embassy and a Russian-American cultural organization entered its fifth day yesterday as two Russian embassy cars continued to block the departure of a truck that was to carry the Romanov jewels to a scheduled exhibition in Houston. The jewels remain... MORE

Sergei Stankevich, who in the late 1980s was one of the leading lights of the Soviet democratic movement, has been arrested in Warsaw and is expected to be extradited to Russia. Stankevich, who has been on the run for two years, is accused of accepting... MORE