Tbilisi announced about joint “international training exercises” with the North Atlantic Alliance.

On 6 May regular military training exercises for the representatives of the NATO Cooperative Longbow 09 will start in Georgia.

Apart from military officers from the USA, solders from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Spain, Macedonia, Turkey, UAE, and UK will arrive for sharing their experience, in total – 1300 soldiers and officers. The first round of training is going to be held in Tbilisi from 6 to 17 May. As from 18 May “teachers” and “students” will move to the former Russian military base Vaziani, where military field manoeuvres will take place.

The Russian representative to the NATO Dmitrij Ragozin considers such “sabre-rattling” in the region of tension as direct interference by the NATO into the matters of Georgia. In particular, in the situation, when the Georgian opposition announced about the termless strike:

- All this looks like support by the Alliance to the President of Georgia Michail Saakashvili!

Material has been prepared by the Centre of Geopolitical Studies with reference to the article from “Komsomolskaja Pravda” of 16 April 2009.

For effective complex defence of Latvia, the establishment of a permanent division of the National Armed Forces has started in Latgale, reported the official website of the Ministry of Defence.

On 13 January a concert "Together to the victory" was held in Lithuania, where the audience decided to support Ukraine's defence and donated 110 thousand Euros.

Alexander Lukashenko on 9 January signed a decree № 8 "On the establishment of visa-free entry and exit of foreign nationals." The document establishes visa-free entry to Belarus for a period not exceeding 5 days at the entrance through the checkpoint "National Airport Minsk" for citizens of 80 countries, - reported the press service of the President of Belarus.