DUMA SEEKS TO REIN IN KALININGRAD SEPARATISM.

On June 7, the Russian Duma began to debate a draft law which would give Kaliningrad a special status, BNS reported. The Russian government appears to be opposed to any grant of such status to the region, but Duma deputies suggested that a failure to give Kaliningrad some kind of agreement could trigger a new wave of separatism in this non-contiguous part of Russia on the Baltic sea. According to officials in the region, some 20 percent of Kaliningraders would like to have their land become the fourth Baltic state. Many more are furious at Moscow for economic policies which have dried up foreign investment there, inflicting enormous hardship on the region. But a week ago, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service director Yevgeny Primakov said that regional separatism is a declining threat, and that no one in the West was working to promote the disintegration of the Russian Federation, Segodnya said June 2.

Moscow City to Sue on Tariff Issue.