FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE GETS NEW DIRECTOR…

Boris Yeltsin named Col. General Vyacheslav Trubnikov yesterday to the post of director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Trubnikov, 51, became First Deputy Director of the SVR in January 1992. He replaces former SVR director Yevgeny Primakov, who was appointed Foreign Minister January 9. Trubnikov is an Asian specialist who speaks Hindi and English. He worked as a journalist in India in the 1970s and returned to the region in 1980s. Promoted to Col. General in 1994, he is described as a close ally of Primakov. Yeltsin praised Trubnikov and suggested that he had become familiar with his work through frequent visits to the SVR. Also announced yesterday was Yeltsin’s appointment of Aleksei Shcherbakov, a deputy head of the SVR since 1990, to replace Trubnikov. Shcherbakov, 54, has served in western Europe and southern Asia. (2)

…and New Law.