"The main question for the next few years is whether the Kharkiv agreements will become a tool of stabilization, development and rapprochement of Ukraine and Russia", Irina Kobrinskaya.

Tashkent said again that Uzbekistan-Russia relations are strategic, and that Russia plays a key role in ensuring global and especially regional security and stability in Central Asia.

Recent statements by Russian Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, indicate that the experiment with contract personnel in the armed forces has finally failed. Serdyukov outlined some of the reasons for these failings, ranging from low pay to how they were recruited and noted the problem of retention.

The bloody and chaotic overthrow of the Bakiev regime is not good news for anybody. For Western liberals, it merely highlights the sorry conditions in Kyrgyzstan, the one country in Central Asia that had tried to follow Western advice about the benefits of democratization, market reform and free trade.

Eurasian Home with a kind permission of The Institute for Policy Studies (Tbilisi) publishes a report, prepared by Nana Sumbadze, “Georgia Before and After the August War”. The report reflects the results of the survey of the Georgian population, carried out in 2007 and 2008.

Eurasian Home with a kind permission of The Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies publishes a report, prepared by Alexei Pikulik, Maxim Znak, Alexei Lashuk, Elena Rakov, Marina Roshina and Vitali Silitski, “Getting Belarus to the top 30 countries with the best business climate”. The study assesses the opportunities and proposes policies to ensure Belarus's entry in list of thirty countries with the most favorable conditions of doing business.

Geopolitical influence is an expensive thing. The Soviet Union realized that well supporting the Communist regimes and movements all over the world including Cuba and North Korea. The current Russian authorities also understood that when they agreed that Ukraine would not pay Russia $40 billion for the gas in return for extension of the lease allowing Russia's Black Sea Fleet to be stationed in the Crimea.