ANTI-AMERICAN PROTESTS LAUNCH JOINT NAVAL MANEUVERS.

A series of joint exercises between Russia’s Pacific Fleet and the U.S. Seventh Fleet got underway earlier this week in Russia’s Far East. But ceremonies marking the arrival of the USS Germantown in Vladivostok on August 4 were marred by the protests of Russian demonstrators–representatives of local Communist and nationalist groups–who opposed the joint maneuvers. U.S. naval officers said that they were unfazed by the protests, but the action did force the two fleets to move the August 6-7 exercises from just outside Vladivostok’s city limits to a group of islands some sixty miles south of the city. (AP, NTV, August 4; Itar-Tass, August 6)

The protesters had been opposed in particular to a U.S. Marine landing that was to have taken place near Vladivostok as part of the exercises. The governor of Primorye region, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, joined the protesters in opposing the landing, although he embraced the exercises as a whole. This year’s exercises mark the third time that the U.S. Seventh Fleet and Russia’s Pacific Fleet have held joint maneuvers since 1994. The next round of exercises, in which the Russian and U.S. forces practice rescues at sea and responses to civilian calamities, is scheduled to take place next year near San Diego.

PARAMILITARY EXERCISE IN ESTONIA RECALLS ANTI-SOVIET RESISTANCE.