In a rare public statement, Galina Lebedeva, a biologist who has been married to Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky for 25 years, told a press conference in Helsinki that despite his gift for provoking controversy, her husband is very quiet and considerate at home, Western agencies reported on 2 January. Lebedeva rarely accompanies Zhirinovsky at public appearances. On 27 December, Kazan Industrial Association Teplokontrol nominated Shaimiev as a candidate in the republic's 24 March presidential election. The only other declared candidate for the presidency so far is Anatolii Vasilev, a former employee of the republican Interior Ministry and vice president of the International Fund for Mothers and Children. According to Russian TV, Vasilev will probably not manage to collect the 50,000 signatures that are required to be officially registered as a candidate since he was not even able to win a seat in the republic's spring 1995 parliamentary elections.
Russian law requires at least two candidates to run in any election for it to be considered valid.
General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov has apparently replaced General Anatolii Shkirko as commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, NTV reported on 1 January. Approximately 45,000 additional refugees are now in Ingushetiya and North Ossetiya. Many refugees are now believed to have fled Chechnya for a second time, after returning home this summer during the ceasefire talks. At a 2 January Moscow news conference, retired KGB Colonel Vladimir Alganov denied recent charges that Polish Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy had worked as a Russian agent, Russian and Western agencies reported. He also claimed that Polish intelligence operative Marian Zacharski had followed him to Majorca in 1994 in an attempt to obtain compromising information on Oleksy.