More than 3,000 Uzbek military officers and cadets will receive education in Russia next year.
A source at Uzbekistan's Defense Ministry told RFE/RL on December 11 that Uzbek military officers and students at Uzbek military schools will receive training at Russian military schools in 2015.
After talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Tashkent on December 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that 12,000 Uzbek citizens are currently studying at Russian higher education institutions.
He said wider educational cooperation would strengthen the two nations' ties, which have been tense since the 1991 Soviet collapse even though their governments treat internal dissent harshly and share concerns about threats from Islamic militancy.
They signed an agreement on military cooperation in 1994, but Uzbekistan withdrew from a Moscow-led security grouping linking several former Soviet republics in 2012.
The same year, an agreement on Russian arms deliveries to Uzbekistan through 2020 was signed.
