RUSSIAN PLANES AND MISSILES FOR KAZAKHSTAN.

Russia delivered to Kazakhstan yesterday the first four Sukhoy-27 tactical combat airplanes of the sixteen which are due. Kazakhstan is also to receive some S-300 surface-to-air missile installations, the first of which is to be deployed near the new capital of Astana. The airplanes and the missiles are compensation for the strategic bombers Russia withdrew from Kazakhstan after the Soviet Union was dissolved. President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s talks with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in Astana last December finally unblocked the overdue delivery (Itar-Tass, January 25; see the Monitor, December 24, 1998).

SECURITY SITUATION NEAR DUSHANBE IMPROVES.