Word: abkhazia
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...slap in the face last week as Moscow went on the offensive against Ukraine and Georgia. After Russian President Dmitri Medvedev waded into Ukrainian politics with barbed criticism of his Ukrainian counterpart's "anti-Russian" policies, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin embarked on a provocative trip to reaffirm support for Abkhazia, the Moscow-backed territory that enjoys de facto independence from Georgia...
...check Russia's determination to forcefully push what it calls its "privileged interests" in its neighboring countries. The flurry of diplomatic activity came symbolically on the anniversary of last summer's Russia-Georgia war, in which Moscow intervened on behalf of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. (See pictures of the war in Georgia...
...This week the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said the Kremlin would station around 3,000 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia by the end of the year. The Russian army has already built three bases in this scrubby mountain territory, and is building a fourth. Tskhinvali, which remains pockmarked and burnt from the five days of heavy fighting despite loans and pledges from Russia that the city would be rebuilt, is now host to a pristine Russian army base surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...
...Georgian forces launched an early-morning assault on South Ossetia after days of clashes between Moscow and Tbilisi over the fate of the breakaway republic and that of Abkhazia, another republic that had declared independence from Georgia following wars in the early 1990s. Hours after the attack, Russia responded with what the West condemned as a "disproportionate" use of force. Within five days, Russian forces had driven Georgian troops out of South Ossetia and into central Georgia. During the war, international human-rights groups accused Georgia of indiscriminately shelling civilian areas and Russia of allowing the ethnic cleansing of Georgian...
...Whether or not it turns out to be justified, Russia and Georgia's blame game could have tragic consequences. During his recent visit to Tbilisi, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden stressed that "there is no military option to [South Ossetia and Abkhazia's] reintegration [into Georgia]," and according to Georgian National Security Council Secretary Eka Tkeshelashvili, Biden told him that the U.S. is now carrying out "preventive diplomacy so the situation does not deteriorate." But if what Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Karasin said on Wednesday is true and "no one can give us any guarantee that there will...