UKRAINIAN SECURITY CHIEF SAYS KYIV SLOW TO INCREASE NATO TIES. Vladimir Gorbulin, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council, has complained that Kyiv has made "no serious progress" in developing cooperation with NATO, Interfax reported on 2 October. Gorbulin made his remarks during the first meeting of a new state commission intended to promote cooperation with the Western alliance. He called on all ministries and state agencies to work together to increase cooperation with NATO.

ZHIRINOVSKY MAKES "OFFER" TO HUNGARY. In an interview with the Hungarian daily "Nepszabadsag," Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, has offered to help Hungary regain territories that are now part of Ukraine and have a large Hungarian minority. The territories belonged to the former Czechoslovakia between the two World Wars and were briefly annexed by Hungary during World War II. Zhirinovsky, who is in Budapest on a private visit, also warned that Hungary "would swarm with spies and provocateurs" if it joins NATO, AFP reported on 2 October. In other news, Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs on 2 October presented a piece of the barbed wire fence that separated communist-era Hungary from Austria to the George Bush Library in Houston, "Nepszabadsag" reported.