Pot 2 comprises three-time champions Germany, 1968 winners Italy, England and Russia -- who as the Soviet Union won the first tournament held in 1960.
Kyrgyzstan had invited Russia to station attack aircraft at an airbase on its territory - the first time Russia had opened a foreign military base since the end of the Soviet Union.
BBC: NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Military rivalry in Kyrgyzstan
After the 14 non-Russian republics of the old Soviet Union went their ways, Russia was left with more than a score of autonomous ethnically named regions and republics.
The sale of the Mistrals is by far the most prominent example, but present-day Russia is far more open to foreign defense technology than was the Soviet Union which, as the articles state, had a standing policy of manufacturing all of its own weapons systems.
Most such cases have involved material filched from ill-guarded sites in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIST: Preventing nuclear trafficking is easier than policing it
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia -- the first time Russia sent troops abroad to fight since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
What the Justice Department's 1996 memorandum on this issue fails to point out is that neither the United States, the Soviet Union nor Russia is a party to this 1978 convention--and that in fact 90 percent of the world's states have also refused to sign it.
And the May 9th commemoration in Russia is so important because it reminds us of the extraordinary sacrifices that the then-Soviet Union made and the strength of the alliance between the U.S. and the Russian people.
The US bid makes a point of stressing how many of the facilities are already in place and ready to use, while Russia's much-lauded proposals promise to open new markets for football in the former Soviet Union.
In future, the argument runs, mutual suspicion will co-exist with Russia's westward energy sales, just as in the last years of the Soviet Union.
ECONOMIST: Russia's relations with the West are deteriorating
Of course, these limitations did not keep the Soviet Union and, after its demise, Russia from putting into place a territorial anti-missile system.
As the foreign-ministry document asserts, Russia needs to consolidate the former Soviet space by, for example, pushing the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has had only three presidents, including Medvedev, now up for re-election if he chooses to run.
Russia is increasingly asserting its right -- and its intention -- to use military force in areas of the former Soviet Union in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia.
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