Originally Posted by Gladiator

"Russia said today its troops would stay in the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for a long time to come, a day after Moscow agreed to pull its forces out of other Georgian territory within the month.

Yesterday's deal, between France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, specifically excluded Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The future of the two enclaves, which Moscow recognised as independent last month, will be discussed at an international conference in Geneva on October 15. "

Russian troops to stay in Abkhazia and South Ossetia | World news | guardian.co.uk


"Russia established diplomatic ties on Tuesday with Abkhazia and South Ossetia and promised to keep thousands of Russian troops in the breakaway Georgian regions for a “long time” to come.


The move drew a furious response in the Georgian capital Tbilisi where Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria described it as “yet another step in the annexation of Georgia's sovereign territories”.

A month after going to war with Georgia over South Ossetia, Russia has shown it intends to maintain a vice-like grip over the two Moscow-backed separatist regions which two weeks ago it recognized as independent states.

The day after Russia committed to withdraw troops from the rest of Georgia within a month, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow was formally establishing ties with Tskhinvali and Sukhumi, the breakaway capitals."

tehran times : Russia forges ties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia


"Again Rice went on to talk about how wonderful, friendly, democratic and open, blah, blah, etc NATO is. She repeated the usual litanies about how it projects peace and security. Ask the Serbs what they think about this flowery language. Ask ethnic Russians in Ukraine what they think about peace-loving NATO. The fact is Rice and NATO never think about anybody else’s security – least of all Russia’s. Never once did Rice mention how Russia understands its own security interests. Never once - to my mind – has the US ever sat down with Russia to cut a deal both can live with.

Rice really annoyed me by her remarks that Russia bullies its neighbors - and the reference to using energy as a blackmail tool is simply ludicrous. The U.S. has spent millions of dollars to promote regime changes in the post-Soviet space. Is Russia really expected to stand on the sidelines and watch the U.S. overthrow regimes it doesn’t like in favor of those that promote its global geopolitical agenda (that is almost always directed against Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space)? Any Russian leader who would allow this to happen would be charged with dereliction of duty.

As for using energy to blackmail its neighbors, Rice obviously does not know much about Russia’s energy policy. Prior to about 2001, Russia DID use energy as a political tool. But such a policy did not produce dividends. Russia provided CHEAP energy to its neighbors in the HOPE of political deference. What happened? Russia’s neighbors gladly accepted Russia’s cheap energy, but at the same time entertained Western approaches. Essentially what Russia tried to do was to subsidise its neighbours’ foreign policies and it didn’t work. Going to market prices takes politics out of the equation. But Dick Cheney doesn’t agree. Energy is his favourite weapon of choice to start wars."

RussiaToday

Is the US simply baiting the Russian Bear to create a scary International situation to influence or scare voters for elections in the US?


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