* Nursultan Nazarbayev was inaugurated as the president of Kazakhstan
* The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, opened its spring session
* Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko heavily criticized a decision made by parliament to dismiss the country's government
* Russian Railways said the country increased rail deliveries of its oil to China by more than 30% in 2005, to more than 7.6 million metric tons (150,000 bbl/d)
* Five people died in northern Russia after a fire broke out in their residential building
