Russia-South Ossetia border may vanish

The border between Russia and South Ossetia may cease to exist, according to the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
He says there are corresponding mechanisms in the recently signed Moscow-Tskhinval agreement on friendship and co-operation.

“As far as integration is concerned, currently it will be enough if we essentially eliminate borders between the Russian Federation and South Ossetia, assisting to restore the republic’s economy, if we give people an opportunity to live quietly and bring up their children, develop their republic and communicate without restrictions, without formalities at the frontier,” Putin said.

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Parliament wants Russia to recognize independence of South Ossetia, Abkhazia

MOSCOW -- The Russian parliament Monday called upon President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian republics, a gambit that promises to further inflame tensions between Russia and the United States.

Lawmakers in both houses of parliament voted unanimously for the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where a 2-decade-old rebellion ballooned this month into a bloody struggle between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia.

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Georgia at War: What I Saw

The first thing that strikes me as soon as we are out of Tbilisi is the strange absence of military force. I had read that the Georgian army, defeated in Ossetia, then routed in Gori, had withdrawn to the capital to defend it. I reach the outskirts of the city, moving forty kilometers on the highway that slices through the country from east to west. But I see almost no trace of the army which has supposedly regrouped in order to fiercely resist the Russian invasion.

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South Ossetia crisis: Diplomatic rubble

But the most telling analogy is with Iraq and its ill-fated invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait indeed had been a province administered from Baghdad for millennia, so Saddam Hussein understandably coveted it, as Saakashvili does Ossetia. Hussein was convinced that the US had given him the green light after he had spent 10 years fighting the US’s latest bete noire, Iran , just as Saakashvili was given a similar ambivalent go-ahead to invade Ossetia . Even Townsend admits, “I think they misunderstand our eagerness and enthusiasm and think we are going to be behind them for anything.” Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said it best: “It is hard to imagine that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili embarked on this risky venture without some sort of approval from the side of the United States......

Saakashvili’s strategy is also reminiscent of the Israeli conquest of 1948: by bombing the civilians he shows he wanted to have Ossetia without its native Ossetians. To this end he bombarded the capital, Tskhinvali, causing half the residents to crossed the mountains to the Russian side. Fortunate for the Ossetians, and unlike the Palestinians, they had a reliable patron


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Russia threatens new confrontation over Georgian provinces

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has signed 14 United Nations Security Council resolutions accepting that Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain part of Georgia despite establishing rebel administrations after secessionist wars in the early 1990s.
But after crushing Georgia on the battlefield, Russia has indicated that it was no longer prepared to honour UN edicts on the breakaway provinces. Earlier this week, Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the world to "forget" about Georgia's territorial integrity

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