RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS BACK INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ON NIKITIN ARREST.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry yesterday defended the arrest and detention by the country’s Federal Security Service of Aleksandr Nikitin, a Russian researcher charged with treason for work done in collaboration with the Norwegian environmental group Bellona. Despite protests from environmental and human rights groups within and outside of Russia that Nikitin’s research activities had violated no national security laws, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Moscow’s position on the case remains "unchanged." (Interfax, August 20. See also Monitor, February 13 & April 30)

Speculation over Yeltsin’s Ability to Govern.