On Wednesday, April 29, on the same day that NATO and Russia formally resumed contacts since they were broken off eight months ago in the aftermath of the Russia-Georgia war, the accreditation of two diplomats from Russia's 50-member strong Permanent Mission to NATO was revoked... MORE

[Photo Credit: Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the joint press conference. Moscow, April 29, 2009. Photo courtesy of the Cabinet Press Office/ForUm (en.for-ua.com).] On Wednesday, April 29, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko paid a one-day visit to... MORE

The meeting of the EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council on April 28 in Luxembourg presented another vivid example of growing differences over the recently launched EU outreach initiative to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova called the Eastern Partnership (EaP). Conceived by Poland and supported... MORE

Today Russian Deputy Defense Minister, Army General Nikolai Pankov made public the preliminary results of an unannounced military proficiency test among officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in the Russian Armed Forces. The results are rather appalling. One in every five senior military officers failed to... MORE

On Friday, April 24, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent into retirement the head of the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GRU) General Valentin Korabelnikov. The 63-year-old Korabelnikov, who had been heading the GRU since 1997, is replaced with his deputy, Lieutenant General Alexander Shlyakhturov. The RIA Novosti... MORE

At a news conference held in the town of Białystok (eastern Poland) late on Thursday, April 23, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich unveiled the details of the trilateral initiative by Poland, Norway and Turkey to share early warning radar data with Russia. As envisioned, a... MORE

The Regional Response 2009 military exercises, which are carried out in the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, conclude in Azerbaijan this weekend. The exercises commenced on April 18 and are due to end on April 26. Focused on multinational peacekeeping operations and... MORE

The first meeting of Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian sides in accordance with the terms of the incident prevention and response mechanism agreed upon during negotiations in Geneva in February was held today in the Georgian village of Ergneti close to the border between the... MORE

Today the Kazakh Minister of Defense Danial Akhmetov announced that his country will not be taking part in the NATO exercises in Georgia planned for May 6-June 1. This was later confirmed by the head of press service of the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan,... MORE

Today Nikolai Bordyuzha, the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – the Russia-dominated military-political grouping of former Soviet states comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – announced that Russia decided to increase its air force assets at Kant air base in... MORE