No surprise that those include visitors from China, the Gulf states and the former Soviet republics.
The new theme is likely to be integration between Russia and former Soviet republics.
The military also hopes to boost the "contract force" with recruits from neighbouring former Soviet republics.
The alliance has already welcomed former Soviet republics such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
In contrast to other former Soviet republics, it has been largely free of inter-ethnic hostilities.
He may even see it as the prelude for reunifying Russia with other ex-Soviet republics.
With luck, they will now remember that, and stop behaving like leaders of banana republics.
This, too, was the pattern in other republics which also have land borders with Afghanistan.
The powers of the Union cannot be changed without the consent of all republics.
It may be proving harder, these days, for Moscow to control the outlying regions and republics.
There are obvious uncertainties about how it will work, how many former republics will participate, etc.
To the east and west lie the Russian republics of North Ossetia and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Under Soviet rule, Central Asia was carved into the Kazakh, Kirgiz, Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek republics.
By that time, Russia could not rescue its own parlous finances without cutting the republics adrift.
Could most of the Soviet republics have been kept together in some sort of loose federation?
Iran, as it would, blames not over-fishing but oil drilling by the ex-Soviet republics.
Russia has kept its military presence not just in Georgia but in other former Soviet republics.
ECONOMIST: Russia, NATO and Europe: Marching through Red Square | The
In Ukraine, the largest and most strategically important of the former Soviet republics, trouble is brewing too.
The greatest empire the world had ever seen sent a massive army to annex the Boer republics.
Chechnya and Dagestan are neighboring republics that fall within Russia's borders in the south of the country.
The Kremlin has been extending loans to former Soviet republics like Armenia and Belarus for Russian-made reactors.
In recent years, former Soviet republics have had some of the world's worst air traffic safety records.
When former Communists took control of the newly independent republics, they found themselves grappling with existential crises.
Comment: This provision magnanimously permits the republics to cede what remains of their powers to the Union.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. leader to visit the former Soviet Baltic republics.
The Yugoslav national bank in Belgrade has hit back by blocking all payments between the two republics.
Trade and credit agreements between the individual reformist republics of the Soviet Union and the United States.
Might, for instance, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia proper be reshaped as three republics linked in one federation?
Russia and the Central Asian republics have become the main conduit for American troops and their supplies.
The OSCE consists of the United States, Canada, all European countries and former Soviet republics in central Asia.
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