NATO, Georgia open joint military training centre near Tbilisi
Moscow (dpa) -- NATO and Georgia on Thursday opened a joint military training centre outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi, in an effort to improve the country's forces as it aspires to NATO membership.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the country as a "strong and reliable contributor to our shared security" at the inauguration ceremony alongside Georgia's top leadership, according to a NATO statement.
Georgian troops will train alongside NATO allies at the facility at the Krtsanisi military base in the southern Caucasus mountains, the statement said.
Georgia, which joined NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1994, considerably ramped up efforts to join the bloc after losing a five-day war with Russia over two breakaway territories in 2008.
NATO has conducted several large military exercises in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova this year, all former members of the Soviet Union.
But NATO is wary about giving Georgia full membership because the bloc would then be obligated to defend Georgia in case of renewed hostilities with Russia.
The new training facility in Georgia "will help make Georgia and Georgian forces even more capable and more modern, and it will also strengthen cooperation between NATO and partner nations," Stoltenberg said.
"So there is more Georgia in NATO and more NATO in Georgia," he added.
Russian finance minister says will demand full debt repayment from Ukraine - state TV
MOSCOW, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia will demand full repayment from Ukraine of a $3 billion Eurobond that comes due in December, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the state-run Rossiya 1 television channel.
"We have always insisted and will continue to demand from Ukraine a full implementation of the (Eurobond) terms," Siluanov said.
"We insist on a full repayment in December of this year of $3 billion, including interest payments."
He added that Ukraine's debt to Russia is not a commercial debt.
"The question of managing debt of official creditors, of countries such as Russia, should be considered completely separately (from commercial debt)," Siluanov said.
Some 30,000 to 50,000 “volunteers” took part in the fighting in Donbas, claimed former so-called DPR Prime Minister Aleksandr Borodai.
To unite them, Borodai will create a Union of Donbas Volunteers in Russia. Borodai says the organization won’t have a political agenda and will rely on private funding. However, Borodai said that the members of the future union will be ready for mobilization, if needed.
“We don’t intend to fight the 'fifth column' or search for it. We hope that the internal situation in Russia won’t bring about serious consequences … Although, if it is necessary, we won’t go anywhere. We are Russian patriots and we will defend Russia,” said Borodai.
His statement was met with sarcasm by some Twitter users.
“That’s what a civil war looks like,” reads this tweet.
Estonia To Build Fence Along Russian Border
Estonia says it plans to build a fence along part of its eastern border with Russia to safeguard its security and protect the EU's passport-free Schengen Area.
Interior Ministry spokesman Toomas Viks told the French AFP news agency on August 27 that construction would begin in 2018 and be completed by 2019.
He said the information gathered by around-the-clock surveillance could "be used as evidence in cases of cross-border crime, be it illegal border crossing, smuggling, [or] human trafficking."
According to Estonia's border guards, the 2.5-meter-high barbed-wire fence will span nearly 110 kilometers.
The announcement comes amid regional tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.
The Baltic states, including Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have been rattled by Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting government forces since April 2014.
Based on reporting by AFP
Organization Launched To Support Russian 'Volunteers' In Ukraine Conflict
A former leader of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine has announced the launch of a support network for Russian volunteers who fought in the conflict and the families of those killed.
Aleksandr Borodai said in Moscow on August 27 that the Union of Donbas Volunteers aims to gain the same status and benefits for volunteers who fought in Ukraine as for veterans of military conflicts.
Borodai, a Russian citizen, said it is currently being registered by Russia’s Justice Ministry, adding that the organization will have offices in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, and the Crimea Peninsula.
The former self-proclaimed prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic did not specify how the organization would be financed.
Borodai estimated that up to 50,000 Russian volunteers fought in eastern Ukraine since fighting between government forces and separatists erupted in April 2014.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is deploying its regular troops to Ukraine’s east to back up the rebels. Moscow claims its citizens fighting there are all either volunteers or troops on leave from their jobs.
Based on reporting by AFP and TASS
Russia Burns Food For BMW Racing Team
Russia’s agricultural oversight agency has reportedly burned 1.5 tons of food imported for a BMW car racing team taking part in an event in Moscow.
TASS news agency quoted the agency, Rosselkhoznadzor, as saying on August 27 that officials confiscated the goods this week at a checkpoint in the Pskov region, about 700 kilometers northwest of Moscow, for “crude violations of sanitary rules.”
The batch was being delivered for the BMW team in a German-based series of circuit races called DTM, whose Moscow stage starts on August 28.
Russia has banned most imports of Western food products in retaliation for sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.