Word: breakaway
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...splitting the West and the wider international community, the U.S.-backed declaration of independence by Kosovo has given Russia an opening. Countries concerned with separatist problems of their own, from Spain or Cyprus to China, have been unable to follow the U.S. lead in recognizing Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia. And Russia has sought to exploit the gaps that have emerged as a result...
...Balkans is not the only theater in which Moscow is strongly reasserting its presence. This week, just as Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia formally appealed to Russia, the U.N., the E.U. and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) a loose association of post-Soviet countries to recognize their independence. Russia has pointedly abandoned the economic sanctions, clamped on Abkhazia in 1996 to punish its separatism. The Parliament of the Russian Republic of Alania-North Ossetia already voted to incorporate South Ossetia. Next week, the Russian Duma will consider Abkhazian and South Ossetian appeals to join Russia...
...Although Russia pays lip service to Georgia's territorial integrity, it has tacitly supported breakaway provinces, just as it has done in Trans-Dniestria - a province that broke away from Moldova back in the 1990s. Russia deploys its peace-keepers in all the three separatist provinces, and these serve to counter any thoughts of forcible re-integration by Georgia or Moldova. Moscow has also granted Russian citizenship to some 90% of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian populations, giving it grounds to intervene whenever Russia deems it expedient, on the basis of ensuring the security of its citizens...
...Russia is smartly playing a more subtle game then just formally recognizing breakaway provinces," comments Tedo Japaridze, former Georgian Foreign Minister. Indeed, Russia could never openly annex South Ossetia or Abkhazia. That would have been very much in conflict with Russia's harsh suppression of Chechnya's independence, or fears of separatism in non-Russian ethnic regions. Annexing Abkhazia and South Ossetia was also "a red line" drawn by the U.S. But Russia has become the de facto power in both territories without formally annexing them. Chairman of the Chechen Parliament Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov blurted out last week that "Abkhazia...
...engineering student's death bear recalling: having broken into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Feb. 21, he was incinerated when a fellow protester tossed in a Molotov cocktail. For the mourners, Vujovic was simply doing his duty as a Serb by opposing Western recognition of the breakaway province of Kosovo...