Special Forces inaugurate today a training center at a military base near Tbilisi. Some seventy American Green Berets will, in the course of two months, train Georgian, Azerbaijani and Armenian soldiers--in groups of twenty from each country--for demining operations. The U.S. European Command (EUCOM) supervises... MORE

The military exercise CentrasBat-2000 has been in progress since September 10 at the Kazakhstani training range Kapchagai in the Almaty Region. Planned, led and--for the most part--financed by the United States in the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace program, the ten-day exercise brings together... MORE

Uzbek authorities announced yesterday the "complete destruction" of a group of seven Islamist rebels in the Tashkent Region, near the border with Kyrgyzstan. That group was itself a remnant of a larger one, on the move in the Tashkent Region since August, and presumably assigned... MORE

In an indication that the Kremlin may finally be getting serious about military restructuring, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev announced last week that the size of Russia's armed forces would fall by some 350,000 over the next three years, dropping the total manpower level from... MORE

Despite a spy row which threatened to poison relations between Moscow and Tokyo (see the Monitor, September 11), speculation has continued in recent days over the possibility that the Kremlin remains interested in negotiating the return to Japan of two of the four disputed South... MORE

Several newspapers have published the details of a request sent in July by Swiss magistrate Daniel Devaud asking Vladimir Ustinov, Russia's prosecutor general, for help in collecting additional evidence against 14 people whom the Swiss authorities have charged with money laundering and participation in a... MORE

The letter from Swiss magistrate Daniel Devaud to Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov notes, among other things, that Mercata and Mabetex are closely linked companies: Stolpovskikh, who now heads Mercata, previously headed Mabetex. Pacolli, however, is not named among the fourteen listed as having been... MORE

The prosecutor of the North Caucasus Military District has launched around 300 criminal cases this year involving crimes carried out by Russian servicemen in Chechnya. Pavel Krasheninnikov, the State Duma deputy who heads the independent public commission on Chechnya, said yesterday that 179 cases have... MORE

Gubernatorial election campaigns are in full swing in a number of Russia's regions. As the Monitor noted last week, the Kremlin is setting the pace, hoping to use democracy and the ballot box to remove those regional leaders who do not suit it and to... MORE

Meeting on September 9 in Kyiv, the Council of Heads of Security and Special Services of CIS countries focused on the status and missions of the CIS Antiterrorism Center. Although official handouts dwelt on the problem of terrorism and "extremism" in Central Asia, discussion of... MORE