By Eugene Kogan, Tbilisi-based defence and security expert

At a press conference on 7 November 2016, Georgia’s minister of defence Levan Izoria announced plans to reform the country's armed forces, air force and air defence, but concluded that the construction of a new naval capacity was too costly. The Navy was disbanded in 2009 and merged with the Coast Guard, which is part of the Border Guard Division and reports to the Ministry of the Interior (MIA). It should also be emphasised that Izoria's reform plans were not the first and probably will not be the last ones. READ MORE

• December 18, 2017

With the map of Syria’s conflict decisively redrawn in President Bashar al-Assad’s favor, his Russian allies want to convert military gains into a settlement that stabilizes the shattered nation and secures their interests in the region.

• December 15, 2017

Two American B-1B heavy bombers joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea on Thursday amid warnings from North Korea that the exercises and U.S. threats have made the outbreak of war “an established fact.”

• December 7, 2017

Germans see U.S. President Donald Trump as a bigger challenge for German foreign policy than authoritarian leaders in North Korea, Russia or Turkey, according to a survey by the Koerber Foundation.

• December 5, 2017

Syria’s opposition wants Russia and other states to put pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to engage in peace talks in Geneva to produce a political solution within six months, the chief of its delegation said at the start of negotiations on Wednesday.

• November 29, 2017

The founder of Moscow-based anti-virus software company Kaspersky Lab said on Tuesday he would quit Russia if its intelligence agencies ever asked his company to spy for it.

• November 28, 2017

North Korea fired one ballistic missile from Pyongsong, a city in South Pyongan Province, at around 1817 GMT over the sea between South Korea and Japan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday.

• November 28, 2017

Turkey expects to receive its first Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles in 2019, Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Wednesday, the first time Ankara has given a firm timeline for a deal that has alarmed its NATO allies.

• November 26, 2017