Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Eastern European Countries Pledge To Support Georgia

(RFE/RL)

9 November 2005 -- Eight Eastern European countries pledged today to support Georgia in resolving two separatist conflicts which have plagued the country for more than a decade.

Abkhazia Denies Ethnic Georgian Killed For Refusing To Serve In Army

TEXT SIZE - +

November 09, 2005

The group, which includes Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and Bulgaria, gathered in the Romanian capital Bucharest in a reunion dubbed "The new friends of Georgia."

The former communist countries offered to help Georgia in its drive to get closer ties with the West and better enforce its borders.

Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia since the early 1990s.

Georgian authorities have repeatedly accused the peacekeepers of siding with separatists and failing to help the return of ethnic Georgian refugees to their homes.

Both breakaway provinces have enjoyed close ties with Moscow, which has granted Russian citizenship to many of their residents.

(AP)

RFE/RL Caucasus Report

SUBSCRIBE For weekly news and in-depth analysis on Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia's North Caucasus by e-mail, subscribe to "RFE/RL Caucasus Report."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More