Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed Saturday to suspend the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and related international agreements in Russia until NATO ratifies an adaptation agreement, the Kremlin press service said.

Air strikes were called in after a joint U.S.-Afghan patrol was ambushed in the southern province of Oruzgan today. The coalition says the clash left about 11 Taliban fighters dead.

An Afghan provincial governor says a local government investigation found 27 civilians were killed in NATO-led air strikes last week.

Georgia hopes that hosting the maneuvers for NATO will improve its chances of joining the Western military alliance. So the air forces of 12 nations kicked off Wednesday in Georgia.

Ukraine and NATO are preparing to mark the 10th anniversary of the Ukraine-NATO Charter, which was signed on July 9, 1997. To mark the occasion, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sat down with Ukrainian journalists in Brussels, including RFE/RL correspondent Natalia Vikulina, to discuss relations between Kyiv and the alliance.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that NATO's further expansion eastward was reminiscent of the Cold War standoff between the Soviet Union and the West.

NATO is reacting warily to Russia's proposal to build a joint missile-defense project as an alternative to the system the United States wants to install in Poland and the Czech Republic.

NATO has no objections to discussing setting up an information exchange between Brussels and Moscow on missile launches in the framework of the Russia-NATO Council, a source in NATO headquarters said Tuesday.

Russia has allocated $200 million to the Afghan army, and negotiations are underway to write off an $11 billion debt, Russia's deputy foreign minister said in an interview with a Russian newspaper Monday.

Russia declared a moratorium on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) in the hope that the move would encourage its partners to ratify it, a Russian deputy foreign minister said Monday.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has asked Kosovo Albanians for "patience" in their quest for independence. Speaking after talks Friday with the province's Prime Minister Agim Ceku in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, de Hoop Scheffer said Western powers need more time to guide the independence process through the United Nations.

In the wake of a series of high-profile incidents in which U.S. and NATO attacks have killed Afghan civilians, a senior American officer with responsibility for both forces says allied procedures for avoiding civilian casualties are adequate. The officer blames the Taleban for putting the civilians in danger.