Free Republic

Recognition a Lonely Exercise for Moscow 05 September 2008 By Nabi Abdullaev / Staff Writer Ten days after Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, the only other country to have followed suit as of Thursday was that Cold War battlefield of the 1980s: Nicaragua. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's announcement this week of his Central American nation's recognition of the breakaway Georgian regions was a "pleasant surprise," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday. Closer to home, however, Russia's allies among former Soviet republics have remained reticent on the issue. The Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led alliance of...

The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, officially declared Saturday his country's support of Russia and of their decision to recognize South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence. With their President's declaration Venezuela became the second country to officially recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Belarus is the other one - they declared earlier their support of the decision of the Russian government. "We support Russia. Russia has all the right to defend their own interest," Chavez said in a televised statement.

Chairman of the Central Muslim Board of Russia, Supreme Mufti, Sheikh ul-Islam Talgat Tajuddin addressed regional Muslim boards and believers appealing for them to render necessary help and support to the people of South Ossetia and all those who suffered from the humanitarian catastrophe in the territory of this republic. REGNUM correspondent reports referring to the Central Muslim Board's press office. The Supreme Mufti of Russia has also called on the whole Muslim world to recognize independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. ''Russian Muslims, like all our compatriots, support decision of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on recognition of independence...

AUGUST 29, 2008 Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the now seperated Provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has officially recognized as indepenednet, is now proceedingat a rapid pace. Georgian homes and villages are being burned and raised and Georgian civilians are being forced to leave...many with nothing but what they can wear and carry, if that. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced that Georgia was officially breaking diplomatic ties with Russia, ordering its diplomats and staff to leave Moscow and return to Georgia. The action comes as a direct Georgian response to Moscows recognition of its two Provinces...

AFTER barely 100 days in office, the soft-spoken Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, has been cast in the unlikely role of war leader. His initial job appeared to be as Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. But he quickly got a taste for war. On Tuesday August 26th he stood beneath the two-headed Russian eagle and solemnly announced the Kremlin’s decision to recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The decision, Mr Medvedev argued, was forced on him by Georgia’s “genocide” against South Ossetia. But the argument is spurious. It is true that, in the early 1990s, when Georgia was barely a state,...

Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West Last updated at 16:47pm on 27.08.08 Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia. The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain. And Moscow also...

PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev's surprise decision to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia was met with cries of joy in the breakaway territories, dismay in Tbilisi and deep unease among Russia's neighbours in eastern Europe. In Sukhumi, Abkhazia's seaside capital, Maxim Gunjia, the deputy foreign minister, said that the "people were celebrating in the streets". In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's war-torn centre, reporters said the air was filled with the demonstrators marking independence by firing Kalashnikovs and hunting guns. However, in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, officials condemned the Russian decision as "unconcealed annexation". Their concern was shared by other former Soviet Union countries....

Russia's relations with the west plunged to their most critical point in a generation yesterday when the Kremlin built on its military rout of Georgia by recognising the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Declaring that if his decision meant a new cold war, then so be it, President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree conferring Russian recognition on Georgia's two secessionist regions. The move flouted UN security council resolutions and dismissed western insistence during the crisis of the past three weeks on respecting Georgia's territorial integrity and international borders. Last night, Medvedev accused Washington of shipping...

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has escalated tensions between his country and the West by formally recognising the independence of the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Britain has said it "categorically rejects" the decision, which the French foreign ministry has denounced as "regrettable". Georgia's deputy foreign minister described the move as an "unconcealed annexation" of Georgian territory. "I have signed decrees on the recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of South Ossetia and the independence of Abkhazia," Mr Medvedev said on state television this morning after a vote in the Russian parliament. Western countries have insisted that...

Russia: Rebel Georgian regions are independent MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday he has signed an order recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions in the Republic of Georgia. On Monday, both houses of Russian parliament voted unanimously for such recognition. The Federation Council, the upper chamber, voted 130-0 and the Duma, the lower chamber, voted was 447-0 with three lawmakers absent. That vote was rejected by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who called it an attempt by Russia to "justify the occupation" by its forces, which remain in parts of Georgia. U.S....

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia will recognise the independence of Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He made the announcement in Sochi following a unanimous vote for the republics’ independence by both houses of the Russian Parliament in Moscow on Monday. The leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Sergey Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, have reiterated that “they will never agree to remain within Georgia” at an emergency session of the Federation Council. Meanwhile, Georgia has repeatedly said it will never surrender its territories.

TBILISI (AFP) - Russian forces were on Saturday still deployed deep inside Georgia, keeping their grip on a strategic port city, as Moscow brushed aside Western accusations it was failing to abide by a ceasefire deal. ADVERTISEMENT Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from the heart of Georgia on Friday, saying it had now fufilled all obligations under a French-brokered agreement aimed at ending the two-week-old conflict. But Russian troops were still controlling access to the western port of Poti and also established a checkpoint just 10 kilometres (seven miles) north of the key city of Gori, AFP...

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Russia would violate the ceasefire agreement by setting up checkpoints or permanent facilities in Georgia, the White House said on Saturday as Russian soldiers were seen in the Georgian port city of Poti. ADVERTISEMENT Russia has said it has complied with the ceasefire pact by withdrawing most of its forces but continued to patrol the Georgian port city on the Black Sea and Russian soldiers were manning a checkpoint on the main road into the city but were not stopping traffic. "Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the agreement," said White House spokesman...

The coverage of the Russian-Georgian conflict in the Russian and Western media has an odd "through the looking glass" quality. One side sees naked aggression by Russia toward small, defiant, democratic Georgia; the other sees naked aggression by Georgia toward the tiny separatist region of South Ossetia. Where Western observers tend to see a deplorable failure by the world's democracies to take decisive measures against Russia's bullying, Russian and pro-Russian commentators see blatant anti-Russian prejudice and a concerted effort to weaken Russia. But this is not a situation with two equally valid opposing views of reality, or with roughly balanced...

via translation - Moscow. August 20. INTERFAX.RU - Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov said that Russia's upper house of parliament is ready to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for that would be the will of the people of these republics. "The Federation Council is ready to recognize the independent status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, if people so wish these republics, and if it so decides president of Russia," - told reporters the Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, who arrived in North Ossetia and accompanies a shipment of humanitarian aid, prepared Members of the Federation Council. He...

Excerpt - Russia has denied claims its forces have begun withdrawing from Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. A military commander - Major General Vyachislav Borisov - claimed troops had begun to leave. But a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman said: ""It has not started yet. The question of withdrawal is being considered now and the decision will be taken as the situation in the region is stabilised. "What is going on is probably just preparation, not actual withdrawal." ~ snip ~

Georgia's Foreign Ministry said late Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia have seized a power plant and 13 villages in Georgia. A ministry statement said Russian army units and separtist militants shifted the border of breakaway Abkhazia toward the Inguri River. It says they set up temporary administration in 13 villages and put the Inguri hydropower plant under control. The reports could ot immediately be indepdendently confirmed...........

Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia On 16 August 2008 at approximately 4 p.m. local time, armed gangs of the Abkhazian separatist regime together with units of the Russian regular army shifted the administrative border of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia towards the Enguri River. This caused the villages of the Zugdidi region Ganmukhuri and Khurcha, villages of the Tsalenjikha region Fakhulani, Tchale, Mujava and Fotskho-Etseri, as well as territory of the Enguri Hydro Power Plant and adjacent villages of Phichori, Otobaia, Nabakevi, Tagiloni, Chuburkhinji, Dikhazurga and Saberio to fall under the occupation of the Russian...

MOSCOW, Aug. 16 -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed the modified cease-fire agreement with Georgia that U.S. officials say will require Russian troops to immediately return to positions held before hostilities broke out last week. A pull-out, however, will not begin until "extra security measures" ordered by Medvedev are completed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency. "The president issued an order to the relevant authorities to start the adoption of extra security measures envisaged in the six-point plan," he said. "As these security measures are implemented, the withdrawal of forces sent to carry...

Russia cemented gains made in its war with Georgia today when a peace deal, signed by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, allowed Russian peacekeepers to remain in the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and temporarily patrol outside the area.