Word: russian
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Russia has escalated its showdown with its small, NATO-inclined neighbor of Georgia by closing all transport and postal communications. No trains, no flights, no ships, no vehicles, no mail money orders - nothing can cross the border. This time, it's much worse than just another Russian spat with a former satellite state. The Georgia standoff may soon create a major headache for the Bush Administration, because of U.S. support for Georgia's right to align itself with the West...
...Tuesday's announcement of the new measures came even after Georgia had handed over four Russian military intelligence officers accused of spying, and months of insults against Russia, threats to restore Georgia's sovereignty over its breakaway pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and also assaults on Russian personnel serving in Georgia. Moscow insists that Russia is the injured party, forced to retaliate...
...conflict is Georgia's geopolitical orientation: Georgia has joined the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that skirts Russia and ends its monopoly on transporting Caspian Sea oil to world markets; it has defied Moscow on a range of regional issues; and it is attempting to join NATO, presenting the Russian military brass with the prospect of a strategic rival strengthening its position along Russia's southern underbelly. In short, the crisis is an expression of Russia's failure to accept Georgia's independence...
...CHARGED. Colonel Alexander Sava, Russian army officer, along with three other officers; with espionage, by Georgian authorities; in Tbilisi. Georgia's Interior Minister accused the men of spying on the country's military, and claimed they were planning a "serious provocation." Russia called the charges unfounded and recalled its ambassador in protest. Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have steadily worsened since the 2004 election of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has pledged to move the country toward the West...
...irresponsible demagoguery; they worry about Estonian competitiveness being harmed if wages outstrip productivity. The polarization grew particularly acute in the run-up to the recent presidential election, a bruising contest between the incumbent Arnold Rüütel, a grandfatherly former communist official who is 78 and fluent in Russian, and the challenger, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a slick American-educated foreign-policy specialist who is 26 years Rüütel's junior and claims to speak for "the 65% of Estonians who are pro-Western and forward looking." Ilves narrowly won the vote, by electoral college. But a bigger...