No surprise that those include visitors from China, the Gulf states and the 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.
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.
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.
By that time, Russia could not rescue its own parlous finances without cutting the republics adrift.
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
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.
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.
Might, for instance, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia proper be reshaped as three republics linked in one federation?
The OSCE consists of the United States, Canada, all European countries and former Soviet republics in central Asia.
Bashkortostan and its sister republic, Tatarstan, are two of the more important and independent-minded autonomous republics in Russia.
Up to 6m work permits are to be available this year for migrants from the poor ex-Soviet republics.
They set up two fiercely independent republics in the South African heartland: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
Routing the gas through Iran would be avoided, and Central Asian republics wouldn't have to ship through Russian pipelines.
Unlike Uzbekistan, neither Tajikistan nor Kyrgyzstan, the two poorest former Soviet republics, has reliable access to oil or gas.
ECONOMIST: Spats over control of water roil an already unstable region
The borders of today's Central Asian republics were drawn in the 1920s, with political and strategic considerations in mind.
Lately he has expanded his Chabad initiatives, once confined to Russia and other former Soviet republics, to the West.
But Tajikistan, the poorest of the ex-Soviet republics, is still to be convinced.
Republics with close ties to Russia, such as Armenia, will see no change.
Neil Wilson has co-authored the Lonely Planet Czech and Slovak Republics guidebook.
Russia and its onetime republics pump 13% of the world's oil, 9 million barrels a day, second to Saudi Arabia.
Born of revolutions, America and France each established republics inspired by Enlightenment thinking, and based on freedom and individual rights.
应用推荐