GEORGIA LAUNCHES U.S.-LED MILITARY DRILL DESPITE RUSSIAN WARNING (Source newsweek.com) Georgia has launched a two-week military exercise with NATO allies led by the U.S. despite Russia’s warnings that they have been following the preparations and consider Georgia’s actions provocative. Relations between Georgia and Russia took a severe turn for the worse in 2008 when, after years of political deadlock with separatists in two of its regions near its border with Russia, Georgia opted for a military solution. In response, Russia, who had supported separatists in both regions—South Ossetia and Abkhazia—advanced forces to fight Georgian troops away from the territories. Since then Russia has moved towards effectively incorporating the two regions under its leadership, while Georgia has refused to recognize them as anything but its sovereign territory, temporarily out of its control. Meanwhile, Georgia has also actively sought to join NATO, despite Russia repeatedly making clear that it considers any increase of NATO presence near its borders a threat. In the latest of these moves, Georgia kicked off the 2016  HYPERLINK “http://www.eur.army.mil/noblepartner/” \t “_blank” Noble Partner exercise on Wednesday. The drill sees 500 Georgian, 650 U.S. and 150 U.K. soldiers train together to improve the military-to-military relationship between NATO states and Georgia and to raise Georgia’s standards to NATO levels.