Part 698

Military

Military branches: Ground Forces, Navy, Air Forces, Air Defense Forces, Strategic Rocket Forces

Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age

Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 38,449,126 (1997 est.)

Military manpower - fit for military service: males : 29,996,967 (1997 est.)

Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 1,115,858 (1997 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure: $NA note : the Intelligence Community estimates that defense spending in Russia fell by about 10% in real terms in 1996, reducing Russian defense outlays to about one-sixth of peak Soviet levels in the late 1980s (1997 est.)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: NA%

Transnational Issues

Disputes - international: inherited disputes from former USSR including sections of the boundary with China; islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan and the Habomai group occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, administered by Russia, claimed by Japan; Caspian Sea boundaries are not yet determined among Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan; potential dispute with Ukraine over Crimea; Estonian and Russian negotiators reached a technical order agreement in December 1996, which Estonia is prepared to sign and ratify in January 1997; Estonia had claimed over 2,000 sq km of Russian territory in the Narva and Pechora regions - based on boundary established under the 1920 Peace Treaty of Tartu; based on the 1920 Treaty of Riga, Latvia had claimed the Abrene/Pytalovo section of the border ceded by the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic to Russia in 1944; has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other nation; dispute with Lithuania over the position of the riparian and maritime boundary with Kaliningrad Oblast; Svalbard is the focus of a maritime boundary dispute in the Barents Sea between Norway and Russia

Illicit drugs: limited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for domestic consumption; government has active eradication program; increasingly used as transshipment point for Southwest and Southeast Asian opiates and cannabis and Latin American cocaine to Western Europe and the US ______________________________________________________________________

RWANDA

Introduction

Current issues: following the outbreak of genocidal strife in Rwanda in April 1994 between Tutsi and Hutu factions, more than 2 million refugees fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire; according to the UN High Commission on Refugees, in 1996 and early 1997 nearly 1,300,000 Hutus returned to Rwanda; of these, 720,000 returned from Zaire, 480,000 from Tanzania, 88,000 from Burundi, and 10,000 from Uganda

@Rwanda:Geography

Location: Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo

Geographic coordinates: 2 00 S, 30 00 E

Map references: Africa

Area: total: 26,340 sq km land: 24,950 sq km water: 1,390 sq km

Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Maryland

Land boundaries: total: 893 km border countries: Burundi 290 km, Democratic Republic of the Congo 217 km, Tanzania 217 km, Uganda 169 km

Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)

Maritime claims: none (landlocked)

Climate: temperate; two rainy seasons (February to April, November to January); mild in mountains with frost and snow possible

Terrain: mostly grassy uplands and hills; relief is mountainous with altitude declining from west to east

Elevation extremes: lowest point: Rusizi River 950 m highest point : Volcan Karisimbi 4,519 m

Natural resources: gold, cassiterite (tin ore), wolframite (tungsten ore), natural gas, hydropower

Land use: arable land: 35% permanent crops: 13% permanent pastures : 18% forests and woodland: 22% other: 12% (1993 est.)