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"It looks very strongly like the war is escalating both in the region of South Ossetia and now also in Abkhazia," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who chairs the group, told reporters in Helsinki on Saturday.

EURASIA DAILY MONITOR Volume 5, Issue 123 (June 27, 2008)   GEORGIA HIGH ON THE EU-RUSSIA SUMMIT AGENDA By Vladimir Socor The European Union has decided to make an issue of Russia’s assault on Georgia at the EU-Russia summit in Khanty-Mansiisk on June 26 and 27. This decision, and the surge of attention to Georgia within the EU, are unprecedented and were almost forced on the EU by Moscow’s overt seizure Abkhazia in progress since April. Many West Europeans who previously looked away from the situation are now seriously talking about it, though not yet acting on it. Russia’s...

Georgia's march into South Ossetia has prompted the Abkhazia to begin preparing for war as well. Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told SPIEGEL ONLINE that his province might open up a second front. SPIEGEL ONLINE: How is Abkhazia reacting to the events in South Ossetia? Shamba: We have a deal with South Ossetia on how we will deal with crisis situations. And we are now planning on implementing it. Our security council met all night and ordered our army to deploy this morning to the Georgian border. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will a second front now be opened in Abkhazia? Shamba: That...

Russia sent troops and dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia today, vowing to protect its citizens in a move described by Tbilisi's pro-Western Government as an act of war. A South Ossetian rebel minister said that more than 1,000 people had been killed in overnight shelling of the city of Tskhinvali, the separatist capital which Georgia claimed today to have captured. In probably the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 Russian tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia. "We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels. Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians...

Vladimir Putin, the outgoing Russian president, on Wednesday accelerated Moscow’s creeping annexation of Georgian territories to sweeping annexation. This is a victory for hardliners who pressed Mr Putin to give the order before he moves from the Kremlin to the Russian White House as prime minister. It comes as Georgian proposals for peaceful settlements in the territories, Abkhazia and South Os­setia, languish. The west must shake off its torpor, condemn Mr Putin’s gambit and support the Georgian proposals. Ignoring Moscow’s Soviet-style land-grab would intensify strife in the south Caucasus. According to Mr Putin’s “instruction”, Russia will open “representations” in the...

Nikoloz Rurua, the deputy chairman of the Georgian parliament's Committee for Defense and Security, says helicopters that attacked the Kodori Gorge came from Russian territory, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reported. Georgia says Russian helicopters fired on the gorge on March 11, which Russia denies. A multinational commission, including the United Nations, the Georgian government, Abkhazia's separatist government, and peacekeepers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, is investigating the incident. "Three helicopters, preliminarily identified as Mi-24 attack gunships, flew [into the Kodori Gorge] from Russian territory or, to be precise, from the territory of Kabardino-Balkaria," Rurua said. "They made a circle above...

Monday, November 20, 2006. Issue 3543. Page 1. U.S., Russia Sign 800-Page WTO Deal By Miriam Elder Russia and the United States on Sunday signed the long-awaited bilateral deal that paves the way for Moscow's entry into the World Trade Organization after 13 years of diplomatic wrangling. Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref signed the deal with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab on the sidelines of an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi. "This is a historic step -- the last step -- that marks Russia's return to the market principles of the world economy," Gref...

MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's defense minister highlighted Moscow's concern Thursday that Georgia could try to tackle disputes with the self-proclaimed republics on its territory militarily. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which proclaimed independence from Georgia in the 1990s, have contributed to tensions in relations between Russia and Georgia, which accuse one another of plans to unleash a new bloody conflict in the region and to annex territory, respectively.

Two weeks after the first wave of Georgian deportations from Russia, Russia has started using Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia to deport Georgian citizens, while it is reported that Georgian citizens have to pay USD 1000 to make their way home by this route. Talking to The Messenger head of the interim parliamentary committee on territorial integrity Shota Malashkhia confirmed that Russia is using Abkhazia to deport Georgians. "Zugdidi law enforcement has recorded that Georgians enter the country through breakaway Abkhazia. However I cannot say yet whether it is an official decision of Russian government or not," he told The...

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia after a war in 1992-93, but so far no nation has recognised it. Georgia, entangled in a row with Russia, accuses Moscow of backing Abkhaz separatists. The parliament of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia asked Russia on Wednesday to recognise its independence and openly adopt the role of the Black Sea province's patron. Abkhazia broke away from Georgia after a war in 1992-93, but so far no nation has recognised it. Georgia, entangled in a row with Russia, accuses Moscow of backing Abkhaz separatists. "The People's Assembly of the Republic of Abkhazia has decided to...

Russia and Georgia have opened a new front in their feud over the disputed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian and Georgian envoys traded harsh words at the United Nations. Russia asked the U.N. Security Council Tuesday to condemn Georgia's military activities in its breakaway region of Abkhazia. Vitaly Churkin (file photo) Moscow's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin circulated a draft Security Council resolution calling on Georgia to withdraw its troops from Abkhazia's disputed Kodori Gorge region. The long-simmering Russia-Georgia tensions erupted last week when Georgia detained four Russian military observers in Tbilisi, accusing them of spying. Russia responded...

TV NZ.co New Zealand Russia refuses to lift Georgia ban Tbilisi, capital city of Georgia Oct 4, 2006 Russia has rejected US and EU calls to lift economic sanctions on Georgia, saying it had cut transport links to curb a dangerous military build-up by its pro-Western neighbour. In unusually strident remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at the United States. US support for Georgia had "stimulated" Tbilisi into taking unfriendly steps against Russia, he said. Russia cut rail, air and postal links with the former Soviet republic in response to the arrest of four Russian soldiers on spying...

At a dinner for Western experts and journalists on Sept. 9, President Vladimir Putin of Russia issued a stern warning over impending Western moves to grant a form of conditional independence to Kosovo. He said that Russia would use any such move as a precedent for solutions to the existing "frozen conflicts" in the Georgian autonomous republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These are under de facto Russian military protection, just as Kosovo is under NATO military protection. This is a warning that the West should take extremely seriously. It was in marked contrast to the conciliatory tone of President...

Within the last month Russian-Georgian relations have worsened sharply. A number of hostile actions and gestures from both sides of a political, military and economic nature have escalated the tension. The main objects of the conflict are the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, formally parts of Georgia but de facto independent. While Tbilisi has recently intensified its actions to regain control over both republics, Moscow has threatened Georgia with military intervention should Tbilisi begin an armed operation against the separatists. The situation in the region is so serious at the moment that outbreaks of fighting in both separatist republics...

PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has ordered the Abkhaz government in exile to move from Tbilisi to the Kodori Gorge. The move is a bold step toward restoring central control over the breakaway province. The Kodori Gorge, a remote mountain valley in the northeast of Abkhazia, is the only part of the province still controlled by the Georgian authorities. Most of Abkhazia has been ruled independently of Tbilisi since achieving de facto independence in 1993.

PRAGUE, July 26, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Early on July 25, Georgia deployed up to 1,000 troops to the lower reaches of the Kodori Gorge, which straddles Georgia and Abkhazia, in a bid to rein in an armed Svan militia commanded by the region's former governor, Emzar Kvitsiani. The Svans are an ethnic group closely related to the Georgians, and their traditional home is in the high mountains of northwest Georgia. The military situation, and Kvitsiani's whereabouts, remain unclear. The Georgian television station Rustavi-2 reported on July 26 that at least four people, including two police officers, were hospitalized after fighting...

July 25, 2006 -- Tensions are rising on the Georgian border amid claims that Georgia is deploying soldiers in a bid to disarm a militia leader. Georgia's Imedi television channel says 500 Georgian troops headed to the Kodori Gorge early on July 25, lending credence to claims by authorities in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia that Georgia is building up its military presence near its border. News agencies report Russian peacekeepers as saying they have stopped a dozen soldiers and two armored vehicles at a checkpoint on the way to the Kodori Gorge. The Kodori Gorge district is the only...

SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russian tourists will crowd the beaches of Abkhazia all summer. Officially, they are holidaying in a war zone, but where else can they find such a cheap week in the sun? "This is our second year, we like it here. There isn't even the smell of war any more," said Alexander Grigoryev, a 32-year-old who made the 36-hour train journey from the Volga region to splash around in the warm waters of the Black Sea. "We have sensed nothing but friendliness, we are renting an apartment with a little sauna and a little pool." This little...

Certain analysts feel that Russia's rhetoric regarding the existing conflicts in Georgia has radically changed. Representatives of official Moscow are starting to refuse to acknowledge Georgia's territorial integrity and name the principle of "national self-determination" as an argument in support of this stance. However, at the same time Putin declared that Russia is not going to add any 'new territories' to its current borders. This uncertainty in Russian-Georgian relations may also be caused by the pending Putin-Saakashvili meeting that is to take place in St. Petersburg on June 13. Georgia's territorial integrity was put under question by Russian Foreign Affairs...