World Politics Review contributing editor

World Politics Review Exclusive, Institute of World Politics

Washington, D.C., Friday, August 15, 2008

The War in Georgia has seriously exacerbated relations between Russia and Ukraine's pro-Western government. On Aug. 12, Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko joined the leaders of four other former Soviet states in Tbilisi to show solidarity with Georgia and its embattled president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Yushchenko told the crowd that had assembled in Tbilisi's central square: "You will never be left alone! . . . We have come to reaffirm your sovereignty, your independence, your territorial integrity. These are our values. Independent Georgia is and independent Georgia will always be!"

The following day, President Yushchenko boldly imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Russian military units in Ukraine. Specifically, he directed that Russian warships, warplanes, or other military units give 72 hours' notice before moving within Ukrainian territory.

The order also applies to ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet seeking to reenter their home base at Sevastopol. The Russian Foreign Ministry attacked the measures as a "serious, new anti-Russian step."

Ukrainian officials claimed that the restrictions were not a direct result of the Russian military intervention in Georgia. Instead, they maintain that they had long sought to regulate more effectively Russian operations at the Sevastopol base, but that Moscow had repeatedly delayed commencing talks on the issue by arguing that it had no plan to employ the Black Sea Fleet in foreign military operations.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had stated at the onset of the war that they would not necessarily allow Russian warships to return to Sevastopol if they supported military operations against Georgia. "We have information confirmed by our specialists that several vessels of the Black Sea Fleet left Sevastopol and either made their way or were making their way toward the territory of Georgia,"

Ukraine Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko explained while in Georgia on Aug. 10. "Obviously, if this is confirmed we will have to reconsider the conditions under which these vessels would be able to be stationed on the territory of Ukraine."

On Aug. 13, moreover, the Ukrainian Security Council issued a statement declaring that the presence of foreign warships in its waters "poses a potential threat to Ukraine's national security, particularly if parts of Russia's Black Sea Fleet are used against third countries." The Ukrainian government has long insisted it will not renew Russia's lease regarding Sevastopol when it expires on May 28, 2017.

For their part, Russian officials denounced the Ukrainian government for siding with Saakashvili, who Moscow holds responsible for starting the war and committing war crimes against Russian citizens in South Ossetia.

After the Georgian War began, Sergei Shoigu, Russia's minister for emergency situations, expressed indignation that, "One week before these events, we send a column of humanitarian aid to Ukraine to help flood victims and the next we find they're offering military aid, arms for the destruction of civilians."

One month prior to the invasion, Ukrainian troops participated in a large, multinational military exercise in Georgia, "Immediate Response 2008" which also involved Azeri, Armenian and American soldiers.

After the war ended in an overwhelming Russian military victory, former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who as the last Soviet foreign minister helped dismantle the Soviet Union -- a development that Putin called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century -- warned that "Ukraine most likely'" would be the next country to experience increased Russian military pressure to abandon foreign and defense policies opposed by Moscow.

There are certainly many disturbing parallels in the situations Ukraine and Georgia find themselves with respect to Moscow. Pro-Western governments came to power following popular revolutions in both countries -- in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. Along with Georgia, the Ukrainian government is seeking to join NATO.

At this April's NATO summit in Bucharest, the alliance's communiqué said that both countries "will become NATO members" eventually. The Georgian and Ukrainian governments also have collaborated to pursue energy transit routes linking the Caspian Sea to Europe that bypass Russia.

Unfortunately, Ukraine shares some of Georgia's vulnerabilities as well. The Ukrainian region of Crimea has a majority Russian-speaking population. Some of its members would like to join Russia. The peninsula also hosts an important naval base that Russia does not want to relinquish.

The Kremlin might be able to instigate a pro-Russian uprising in the Crimea in which the insurgents, following the South Ossetian precedent, would appeal for Russian military intervention to protect them from Kiev.

Various Russian leaders have suggested that, if Ukraine actually joins NATO or attempts to expel the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol, then Russia might annex the Crimea. After the Bucharest summit, Putin told a news conference that, "The appearance on our borders of a powerful military bloc . . . will be considered by Russia as a direct threat to our country's security."

Army Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, said that the entry of Ukraine or Georgia into NATO would lead Moscow to "undoubtedly take measures to ensure its security near the state border. These will be both military and other measures."

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov likewise said Moscow "will do everything possible to prevent the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO." These statements appear aimed at stoking tensions with Ukraine to exacerbate the country's internal differences and reinforce West European reluctance to allow Ukrainian entry into NATO.

Nevertheless, there are certain major differences between Georgia and Ukraine. First, the Ukrainian armed forces are much stronger than those of Georgia. Whereas Georgia's prewar military had approximately 37,000 soldiers under arms, the Ukrainian military numbers over 200,000.

The Russian armed forces is still five times larger, but would find a war with Ukraine, with a population -- which, though divided about NATO membership, would presumably rally to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity -- some 10 times larger than that of Georgia, a much greater challenge.

In addition, the United States and some other NATO countries have belatedly sought to reinforce their political-military position in the former Soviet bloc. The Bush administration appears to have accepted Saakashvili's warning that the weak U.S. response to the Russian intervention was creating a situation in which "America is losing the whole region" to Russia.

After days of supporting the Georgian position with nothing but rhetoric, President Bush announced on Aug. 13 that the U.S. military would conduct a relief operation in Georgia. Whatever humanitarian assistance it might provide the Georgian people would pale in significance to the deployment's symbolic importance as reaffirming Washington's continuing role and interests in Russia's neighborhood.

The announcement that NATO would hold a special meeting on the conflict, as well as the long-awaited consummation of a Polish-American deal on basing U.S. missile interceptors in Poland, also signaled that Washington and some of its allies were now determined to shore up their presence in the region to dissuade further Russian predations.

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LINK: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2571
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President, Eurasia Foundation, Washington, D.C.

International Herald Tribune (IHT), Paris, France, Friday, August 15, 2008

WASHINGTON: Even before the dust settles on the humanitarian tragedy unfolding today in South Ossetia and the full extent of the damage is known, one essential truth has emerged: The Caucasus region, Russia and indeed all the nations that once comprised the Soviet Union are of crucial strategic interest to the United States.

Witness the spike in oil prices within hours of the outbreak of hostilities, concerns about oil pipeline safety, weapons proliferation, and the fact that both U.S. presidential candidates devoted valuable campaign time to this foreign policy issue.

Despite the region's importance, the current crisis has demonstrated that the United States and Europe have disturbingly limited diplomatic leverage in the Eurasia region.

Less than a week after Russia and Georgia started fighting, European and American officials have actively begun shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi and the results so far are positive but inconclusive. The fact remains that similar initiatives in the past failed to prevent the outbreak of hostilities, much less resolve the underlying conflict, and it is far from certain that they will work any better this time.

This diplomacy deficit has many causes - including conflicting economic and energy interests in the West, inconsistent policies of multilateral organizations and regressive politics in many former Soviet states - but a major cause is the limited investment of time and money in the region by many Western nations since 2001.

The United States and European governments have neglected the quotidian work of formal diplomatic relations as well as the informal connections that constitute civil society. Unglamorous but essential, these formal and informal relations are the ties that bind, especially when it comes to a crisis like the one we faced this week in Georgia.

Preoccupied with other conflicts and increased demands on the Treasury, the U.S. government in particular has reduced its foreign assistance to the region each year for the last seven years, so that today financial support for engagement between citizens and institutions in America and their counterparts in the Eurasia region is one-half what it was in 2000.

Projects ranging from the improvement of local governments to small business development to international education exchanges - activities that not only help build prosperity and stability in the region, but also improve the environment in which economic and diplomatic relations occur - are put at risk by the sharp reduction in government financing.

This in a region of 12 rapidly developing countries - six of which are secular Muslim nations - all of which are essential to managing some of the most serious international challenges we face, from nuclear proliferation to energy security to labor migration.

There is considerable political will today in the United States and Europe to do something to contain the current crisis in Georgia and prevent the outbreak of new ones in the many hotspots in the Eurasia region.

As leaders apply themselves to the deferred maintenance on formal relations with the countries of Eurasia, they should not overlook the importance of strengthening international engagement at the citizen level, the soft power that, if stewarded properly, can help prevent conflict and help resolve conflicts when they arise.

When the dust settles on the current crisis in the Caucasus, debate over what precisely went wrong will no doubt continue for some time. One point on which all should be able to agree is that engagement at the citizen level must be fostered, and financed, to help avert future crises like the one in Georgia and to extend the diplomatic reach of the governments concerned when they do erupt.

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LINK: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/15/opinion/edbeebe.php

By Maryana Drach, Kyiv, Ukraine
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Friday, August 15, 2008

A Ukrainian government official has called on the European Union to help Kyiv avoid a "security vacuum" like the one that led to the current conflict between Russia and Georgia.

"For a very long time, it's been clear that there was a security vacuum in the South Caucasus," Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria said in an interview with RFE/RL's Ukraine Service. "It's a lesson for Ukraine. Ukraine is the largest post-Soviet country after Russia, and one that shares a long border with the European Union. It can't be left in a similar vacuum."

Nemyria was speaking in Kyiv following three days in Tbilisi meeting with Georgian officials and coordinating humanitarian aid shipments to the country.

Ukraine, a recent ally of Georgia since both countries' "colored revolutions" brought pro-democratic leaders to office, has been staunch in its support of Tbilisi since the start of Georgia's armed conflict with Russia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko joined a delegation of five Eastern European leaders who traveled to the Georgia in a show of solidarity with Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, and Ukraine has warned that Russia would face restrictions on if its Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol, was used in any aggressive actions against Georgia.

The posture has angered Russia, which often seems to regard both Ukraine and Georgia as wayward neighbors that should be brought back into Moscow's orbit. Kyiv and Tbilisi have actively sought membership in the NATO military alliance, an aim that infuriates the Kremlin and is believed to have played a significant role in Russia's military advance on Georgia.

Nemyria acknowledged the possibility that Russia might next turn its focus to Ukraine. "I think old habits die hard," he said of Russia. "What we can see in this overreaction is that there is a risk [for Ukraine]. And of course, Ukraine has a frozen conflict on its own border" -- a reference to Moldova's breakaway region of Transdniester, which like South Ossetia and a third separatist region, Abkhazia, enjoys Moscow's strong support.

"We want to avoid a security vacuum that will be prone to a defrosting of such a frozen conflict," he said. "European leaders must now realize that the South Ossetia conflict has opened such a vacuum throughout the entire area that Moscow sometimes calls its 'near abroad.' We welcome the EU's effort -- led by France, and supported by Germany and others -- to be more visible as an actor in the region."

Nemyria dismissed speculation that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- who has been notably silent on the current Georgia-Russia conflict -- is hoping to secure Russia's support for a future presidential bid.

"The government of Ukraine adopted a clear position, the centerpiece of which was the recognition and support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia," he said. "The president of Ukraine took the lead in voicing the official Ukrainian position, and we felt no need to repeat it. Those accusations against the prime minister are misplaced."

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http://www.rferl.org:80/Content/Ukrainian_Envoy_Says_Georgia_A_Lesson_For_Ukraine/1191452.html

By Peter Fedynsky, Moscow, VOA Correspondent
Voice of America (VOA), Washington, D.C., Friday, August 15, 2008

The former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine are allies engaged in similar attempts to establish democratic rule, to join NATO and realign themselves with the West, much to the displeasure of Russia.

During the conflict in Georgia, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko prohibited ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet that are engaged off the
Georgian coast from returning to port on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula without Kyiv's official permission. VOA correspondent Peter Fedynsky examines how the Kremlin may react to Ukraine's pro-Georgian and pro-Western position.

Ukraine's current President, Viktor Yushchenko flew to Tbilisi to join his Georgian friend and fellow head of state, Mikheil Saakashvili, in the school's re-dedication ceremony. Both men rode to power following mass pro-democracy protests that came to be known as colored revolutions. Georgia's was the Rose Revolution and Ukraine's was the Orange. Accordingly, the Hrushevsky School was painted orange.

Moscow has not disguised its displeasure with the colored revolutions and refuses to deal with Mr. Saakashvili. On Tuesday, President Yushchenko again
flew to Tbilisi, accompanied this time by the presidents of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Mr. Yushchenko says the task of the presidential mission is to show that Georgia is not alone, that in this age the power of reason should not be replaced by the iron fist.

The Ukrainian leader says the five presidents came to Georgia to prohibit the of killing people and the execution of the country.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksiy Melnyk, of the Razumkov Center think tank in Kyiv, told VOA the Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic leaders do not
necessarily agree with all of the actions undertaken in the conflict by Georgian leadership, but notes they risked their own physical security to send a signal to Moscow.

Melnyk says Moscow should see the presidential show of solidarity in Tbilisi as a serious signal that Russian foreign policy of establishing control over
former Soviet republics and its neighborhood achieves a totally opposite effect. The analyst says Russia is surrounding itself with nations that are, at a minimum, not friendly and perhaps even hostile toward Moscow.

Oleksiy Melnyk says Russian military actions in Georgia could lead the majority of Ukrainians who now oppose to their country's NATO membership to
reassess their opinions about the respective security threats posed by the Western alliance and Russia.

The chairman of the European Integration Forum in Tbilisi, Soso Tsiskarishvili, agrees with Melnyk's assessment, but notes Ukraine is better prepared to meets NATO's democratic standards for membership than Georgia.

Tsiskarishvili says Ukraine's two recent parliamentary elections and Georgia's presidential and parliamentary contests differ from one another like heaven and earth in terms of democratic and transparent procedures.

But Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer cautions that Ukraine could be Russia's next target as part of what he says is a grand Kremlin plan for the partial restoration of Russian greatness.

"Russia right now wants at least half of Ukraine to be annexed," said Felgenhauer. "Vladimir Putin talked about that rather openly at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania in April. Ukraine will disintegrate into two halves, and we want the eastern half, including of course, first and foremost, Crimea."

Felgenhauer says Ukraine's overwhelming vote for independence in 1991, which included a majority of Crimeans, means nothing to Kremlin rulers, who the analyst says do not respect the will of even their own people.

Nonetheless, the analyst says Russia is tied down in Georgia and will not make any immediate military moves against Ukraine. He notes, however, that
Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which leases naval facilities in Sevastopol in Crimea, will likely steam back to port in defiance of a Ukrainian presidential order that it must first ask for Ukrainian permission.

"If Russia openly challenges Ukrainian sovereignty, I think that Ukraine will then turn to the West and say, 'you know guys, they're challenging our
sovereignty with their fleet.' And this will happen without any kind of use of arms, or anything made in anger. Ukraine right now, apparently wants to
make the threat to its sovereignty obvious to outside powers," said Felgenhauer.

Felgenhauer says Moscow's vision of the world is that of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin; one in which Russia and Washington share spheres of influence. The analyst notes that Russia withdrew its bases from Cuba and Vietnam, expecting the United States to stay away from what Moscow thought was to be its sphere of influence. He says Moscow felt betrayed when Washington began supporting colored revolutions among Russia's neighbors.

But Soso Tsiskarishvili points to this week's visit to Tbilisi by presidents of five countries that border Russia as a sign that they do not trust the Kremlin.
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LINK: http://www.voanews.com:80/english/2008-08-15-voa19.cfm

At least for now, the smoke seems to be clearing from the Georgian battlefield.

But the extent of the wreckage reaches far beyond that small country.

COMMENTARY: By John R Bolton

Former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Telegraph, London, UK, Friday, August 15, 2008

Russia’s invasion across an internationally recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms represents only the visible damage.

As bad as the bloodying of Georgia is, the broader consequences are worse. The United States fiddled while Georgia burned, not even reaching the right rhetorical level in its public statements until three days after the Russian invasion began, and not, at least to date, matching its rhetoric with anything even approximating decisive action. This pattern is the very definition of a paper tiger.

Sending Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice to Tbilisi is touching, but hardly reassuring; dispatching humanitarian assistance is nothing more than we would have done if Georgia had been hit by a natural rather than a man-made disaster.

The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity, and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia.

More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of aggression.

Even this dismal performance was enough to relegate Nato to an entirely backstage role, while Russian tanks and planes slammed into a “faraway country”, as Chamberlain once observed so thoughtfully. In New York, paralysed by the prospect of a Russian veto, the UN Security Council, that Temple of the High-Minded, was as useless as it was during the Cold War.

In fairness to Russia, it at least still seems to understand how to exercise power in the Council, which some other Permanent Members often appear to have forgotten.

The West, collectively, failed in this crisis. Georgia wasted its dime making that famous 3am telephone call to the White House, the one Hillary Clinton referred to in a campaign ad questioning Barack Obama’s fitness for the Presidency. Moreover, the blood on the Bear’s claws did not go unobserved in other states that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Russia demonstrated unambiguously that it could have marched directly to Tbilisi and installed a puppet government before any Western leader was able to turn away from the Olympic Games. It could, presumably, do the same to them.

Fear was one reaction Russia wanted to provoke, and fear it has achieved, not just in the “Near Abroad” but in the capitals of Western Europe as well. But its main objective was hegemony, a hegemony it demonstrated by pledging to reconstruct Tskhinvali, the capital of its once and no-longer-future possession, South Ossetia. The contrast is stark: a real demonstration of using sticks and carrots, the kind that American and European diplomats only talk about.

Moreover, Russia is now within an eyelash of dominating the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the only route out of the Caspian Sea region not now controlled by either Russia or Iran. Losing this would be dramatically unhelpful if we hope for continued reductions in global petroleum prices, and energy independence from unfriendly, or potentially unfriendly, states.

It profits us little to blame Georgia for “provoking” the Russian attack. Nor is it becoming of the United States to have anonymous officials from its State Department telling reporters, as they did earlier this week, that they had warned Georgia not to provoke Russia.

This confrontation is not about who violated the Marquess of Queensbury rules in South Ossetia, where ethnic violence has been a fact of life since the break-up of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991 – and, indeed, long before.

Instead, we are facing the much larger issue of how Russia plans to behave in international affairs for decades to come. Whether Mikhail Saakashvili “provoked” the Russians on August 8, or September 8, or whenever, this rape was well-planned and clearly coming, given Georgia’s manifest unwillingness to be “Finlandized” – the Cold War term for effectively losing your foreign-policy independence.

So, as an earlier Vladimir liked to say, “What is to be done?” There are three key focal points for restoring our credibility here in America: drawing a clear line for Russia; getting Europe’s attention; and checking our own intestinal fortitude.

Whether history reflects Russia’s Olympic invasion as the first step toward recreating its empire depends – critically – on whether the Bush Administration can resurrect its once-strong will in its waning days, and on what US voters will do in the election in November. Europe also has a vital role – by which I mean the real Europe, its nation states, not the bureaucracies and endless councils in Brussels.

[1] First, Russia has made it clear that it will not accept a vacuum between its borders and the boundary line of Nato membership. Since the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed, this has been a central question affecting successive Nato membership decisions, with the fear that nations in the “gap” between Nato and Russia would actually be more at risk of Russian aggression than if they joined Nato.

The potential for instability and confrontation was evident.

Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to other former Soviet territories – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain.

Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia, because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s oil and natural gas reserves.

Moreover, not all of them meet fundamental Nato prerequisites. But we must now review our relationship with all of them. This, in effect, Nato failed to do after the Orange and Rose Revolutions, leaving us in our present untenable position.

By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. That, as Western leaders like to say, is “unacceptable”. Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members.

By drawing the line clearly, we are not provoking Russia, but doing just the opposite: letting them know that aggressive behaviour will result in costs that they will not want to bear, thus stabilising a critical seam between Russia and the West. In effect, we have already done this successfully with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

[2] Second, the United States needs some straight talk with our friends in Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative.

However, Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks. This is a security threat, and the proper forum for discussing security threats on the border of a Nato member – yes, Europe, this means Turkey – is Nato.

Saying this may cause angst in Europe’s capitals, but now is the time to find out if Nato can withstand a potential renewed confrontation with Moscow, or whether Europe will cause Nato to wilt. Far better to discover this sooner rather than later, when the stakes may be considerably higher. If there were ever a moment since the fall of the Berlin Wall when Europe should be worried, this is it.

If Europeans are not willing to engage through Nato, that tells us everything we need to know about the true state of health of what is, after all, supposedly a “North Atlantic” alliance.

[3] Finally, the most important step will take place right here in the United States. With a Presidential election on November 4, Americans have an opportunity to take our own national pulse, given the widely differing reactions to Russia’s blitzkrieg from Senator McCain and (at least initially) Senator Obama. First reactions, before the campaigns’ pollsters and consultants get involved, are always the best indicators of a candidate’s real views.

McCain at once grasped the larger, geostrategic significance of Russia’s attack, and the need for a strong response, whereas Obama at first sounded as timorous and tentative as the Bush Administration. Ironically, Obama later moved closer to McCain’s more robust approach, followed only belatedly by Bush.

In any event, let us have a full general election debate over the implications of Russia’s march through Georgia. Even before this incident, McCain had suggested expelling Russia from the G8; others have proposed blocking Russia’s application to join the World Trade Organisation or imposing economic sanctions as long as Russian troops remain in Georgia.

Obama has assiduously avoided specifics in foreign policy – other than withdrawing speedily from Iraq – but that luxury should no longer be available to him. We need to know if Obama’s reprise of George McGovern’s 1972 campaign theme, “Come home, America”, is really what our voters want, or if we remain willing to persevere in difficult circumstances, as McCain has consistently advocated. Querulous Europe should hope, for its own sake, that America makes the latter choice.

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NOTE: John R Bolton is the former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Currently a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, he is the author of the recently published “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations” (Simon & Schuster/Threshold Editions.

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London, UK, Friday, August 15 2008

Within hours of the ceasefire in Georgia, Heidelberg Cement reopened its cement factories near Tblisi. The German company’s three cement plants supply about 60 per cent of the country’s market and are one of Georgia’s biggest foreign investments.

They have flourished thanks to a construction boom in Georgia and neighbouring Azerbaijan and could be set to cash in on reconstruction. Brigitte Fickel, a spokeswoman for Heidelberg Cement, said a plant warehouse was damaged during Russian air raids but production had not been affected.

Damage to Georgia’s civilian and business infrastructure has been minimal, but the brief conflict may have done serious harm to the outlook for future foreign investment not just here but in other former Soviet states that clash with Moscow.

“Georgia’s economic growth will be much reduced and foreign investment that has been so important to Georgia’s fundamentals could be revised,” says Olivier Descamps, a managing director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. “We cannot say Georgia’s economy has been physically damaged. But there is the matter of risk and the impairment of confidence.”

Ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s both downgraded Georgia after fighting broke out and warned that the end of combat operations would not shield the country from the longer-term economic impact.

FDI flows are crucial to financing Georgia’s current account deficit and have been a key driver of growth.

Foreign investment stood at 19.8 per cent of GDP in 2007 compared with 13.9 per cent in 2006, according to the Tbilisi government. Georgia attracted more than $2bn (Euro1.3bn, lbs1.06bn) in FDI last year mainly in banking, real estate, mining and agriculture.

The conflict will have a macroeconomic impact in the short to medium term but analysts say there is unlikely to be a clear-cut resolution to the conflict between Georgia and Russia and political uncertainty could cloud investment prospects.

While established projects will not be affected by the conflict, new investors are likely to shy away from Georgia and other countries such as Ukraine, which are seen as standing in Russia’s line of fire.

“We think that Ukraine may be the next investment casualty because it was asked in a veiled fashion if it wants to join Nato and Russia’s actions hark back to the cold war and the desire to retain spheres of influence on its borders,” said Elizabeth Stephens, head of credit and political risk analysis at Jardine Lloyd Thompson.

In Ukraine, FDI has also been a significant part of growth. Net FDI stood at 7 per cent of GDP in 2007 up from 5.2 per cent in 2006, according to the Kiev government.

The Baltic states have tighter trade links with Russia and export large amounts of food as well as being a corridor for Russian exports to western Europe, so are likely to be less affected by the conflict in Georgia, analysts say.

Estonian exports to Russia doubled between 2005 and 2007 and as the share of exports flowing east rose from 6.5 per cent to 8.9 per cent over the period.
“I don’t think there will be a knock-on effect to the Baltic states. They have had tense relations with Russia for some time but that is unlikely to weigh heavily on investors decisions,” said Edward Parker at Fitch Ratings.

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LINK: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d2ede9ba-6ae7-11dd-b613-0000779fd18c.html

Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The current military confrontation between Georgia and Russia is the result of a prolonged dispute between these two countries over the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia’s desire to join NATO, against Russia’s wishes, also played a role.

Many observers also believe that Russia’s strong use of power against Georgia can be seen as an attempt to intimidate other countries – particularly Ukraine, which declared its desire to join NATO and seek EU integration, and Moldova with its ongoing conflict in Transnistria (Pridnestrovie).

Although it is very unlikely that the “Georgian scenario” can play out in Ukraine, the situation may become more critical closer to 2017, when the lease agreement for Russia’s fleet in Crimea terminates. Many political forces in Ukraine believe that this agreement should not be renewed, a position that would antagonize Russia.

CIS countries have achieved mixed performance in terms of building modern democratic institutions. Aside from the Baltic States, Ukraine and Georgia are the only two countries in the region considered to be fairly free and democratic states by most international observers. Almost twenty years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, less than one fifth of the 290 million people living in the FSU enjoy healthy democracies.

Since Ukraine is a rapidly developing new democracy surrounded by several non-democratic countries, including Russia, some Western countries may decide to support the provision of additional safeguards for Ukraine. This might include both fast-track negotiations for NATO membership and a clearer prospect for EU membership.

However, other European countries with a higher dependency on Russian energy resources may be more concerned with ensuring their own energy supply and may not want to initiate any action that could annoy Russia.

Over the last five years, annual GDP growth in Georgia has been around 10% yoy, with an impressive 12% yoy growth in 2007. This growth was mostly driven by net inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI), which can be attributed to the unprecedented improvement in the business environment. Indeed, net FDI grew from 8% of GDP in 2003 to 15% of GDP in 2007.

In the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Ranking for 2008, Georgia is placed in 18th position worldwide (compared to 106th for Russia). Furthermore, Georgia was listed among the top 10 reformers since it managed to improve investor protection and visibly reduced the cost of starting a business. Still, GDP per capita, which stood at $2,300 in 2007, is three times lower than in Kazakhstan, four times lower than in Russia and 25% lower than in Ukraine.

Georgia runs a huge deficit in its international trade in goods, which surged from around 15% of GDP in 2003 to nearly 30% of GDP in 2007. Exports represent only 20% of GDP. Nevertheless, net FDI inflows financed 77% of the $2 billion current account gap in 2007. With large capital inflows, the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank doubled to $1.6 billion in 2007.

Georgia’s trade diversification by commodity is typical for a transition economy with limited deposits of energy resources. In particular, beverages (wines and bottled water), metal ores and transportation equipment are staple export commodities, while petroleum products, cereals, machinery and manufacturing goods are the main types of imported goods.

The geographical orientation of Georgia’s foreign trade is towards the CIS economies (which account for 37% of Georgia’s international trade). The EU accounts for 25% of Georgia’s trade, while the US represents 13%.

Within the CIS countries, Azerbaijan (which supplies petroleum products to Georgia) and Armenia remain the main CIS markets for Georgian goods, accounting for one fifth of all exports. Georgia ships only 4.3% of its exports to Russia (compared to 24% in 2001), as Russia’s embargo on imports of Georgian goods virtually closed access to the Russian market.

The recent military developments in Georgia may have significant effects on the quality of the investment environment in Georgia, which, taking into account the country’s dependence on FDI, may result in a material slowdown of the economy and a collapse of its currency.

The economic impact of the Russian-Georgian conflict on Ukraine and Kazakhstan is likely to be minimal as the economic links between these countries are quite modest. International trade and capital transactions with Georgia constitute very small shares of the total transactions for these two countries.

Ukraine’s merchandise exports to Georgia represent only 1% of Ukraine’s total exports. About 50% of these exports are in iron and steel, food products, and machinery and equipment. Ukraine’s imports from Georgia are also negligible (0.2% of imports) and are mainly in wines and alcoholic beverages. Trade in services is also small, at less that 1% of total Ukrainian trade. Flows of capital, including FDI, are also less than 1% of the total flows of Ukraine.

Kazakhstan is in a similar situation, with the share of Kazakhstan’s international trade with Georgia at about 0.1% of Kazakhstan’s total trade figures.

On August 12th, President Yuschenko (accompanied by the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania) flew to Georgia with the intention of assisting in the peace talks. His visit to Georgia appears to be a diplomatic necessity to show support for a friendly nation rather than a way to facilitate an effective solution of this crisis. Other top Ukrainian officials have shown no (or rather weak) reaction to the conflict.

The absence of a comment or response from the Ukrainian Prime Minister may be explained by the fact that according to the Constitution of Ukraine, the President is responsible for shaping the foreign policy of the country.

So far, the Head of the Parliament has made some trivial comments on the superiority of a diplomatic resolution to this crisis. Moreover, taken into account that leading political groups in Ukraine have opposing views on the foreign policy of Ukraine (the main opposition is pro-Russian, while the President wishes to see Ukraine joining NATO and the EU) it would be rather difficult for the country to declare a clear position on the Russian-Georgian conflict.

OP-ED: By Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Thursday, August 14, 2008; Page A17

TBILISI, Georgia -- Russia's invasion of Georgia strikes at the heart of Western values and our 21st-century system of security. If the international community allows Russia to crush our democratic, independent state, it will be giving carte blanche to authoritarian governments everywhere. Russia intends to destroy not just a country but an idea.

For too long, we all underestimated the ruthlessness of the regime in Moscow. Yesterday brought further evidence of its duplicity: Within 24 hours of Russia agreeing to a cease-fire, its forces were rampaging through Gori; blocking the port of Poti; sinking Georgian vessels; and -- worst of all -- brutally purging Georgian villages in South Ossetia, raping women and executing men.

The Russian leadership cannot be trusted -- and this hard reality should guide the West's response. Only Western peacekeepers can end the war.

Russia also seeks to destroy our economy and is bombing factories, ports and other vital sites. Accordingly, we need to establish a modern version of the Berlin Airlift; the United Nations, the United States, Canada and others are moving in this direction, for which we are deeply grateful.

As we consider what to do next, understanding Russia's goals is critical. Moscow aims to satisfy its imperialist ambitions; to erase one of the few democratic, law-governed states in its vicinity; and, above all, to demolish the post-Cold War system of international relations in Europe. Russia is showing that it can do as it pleases.

The historical parallels are stark: Russia's war on Georgia echoes events in Finland in 1939, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Perhaps this is why so many Eastern European countries, which suffered under Soviet occupation, have voiced their support for us.

Russia's authoritarian leaders see us as a threat because Georgia is a free country whose people have elected to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community. This offends Russia's rulers. They do not want their nation or even its borders contaminated by democratic ideas.

Since our democratic government came to power after the 2003 Rose Revolution, Russia has used economic embargoes and closed borders to isolate us and has illegally deported thousands of Georgians in Russia. It has tried to destabilize us politically with the help of criminal oligarchs. It has tried to freeze us into submission by blowing up vital gas pipelines in midwinter.

When all that failed to shake the Georgian people's resolve, Russia invaded.

Last week, Russia, using its separatist proxies, attacked several peaceful, Georgian-controlled villages in South Ossetia, killing innocent civilians and damaging infrastructure.

On Aug. 6, just hours after a senior Georgian official traveled to South Ossetia to attempt negotiations, a massive assault was launched on Georgian settlements. Even as we came under attack, I declared a unilateral cease-fire in hopes of avoiding escalation and announced our willingness to talk to the separatists in any format.

But the separatists and their Russian masters were deaf to our calls for peace. Our government then learned that columns of Russian tanks and troops had crossed Georgia's sovereign borders. The thousands of troops, tanks and artillery amassed on our border are evidence of how long Russia had been planning this aggression.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303364_2.html?sid=ST2008081401253&s_pos=

OP-ED: By Anne Applebaum, Author, Columnist
Telegraph, London, UK, Friday, August 8, 2008

'It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." In recent days, this famous Churchillian pronouncement on Russia has echoed through many an analysis. In particular, Vladimir Putin - former Russian president, current Russian prime minister, the man still clearly in charge of the country - has been held up as a great puzzle.

What he wants; why he has behaved so aggressively towards Georgia, a much weaker neighbour; why he seems so angry at the West; all of this is widely considered unfathomable.

But in fact, Putin's mindset isn't really all that hard to understand: Ever since he was first appointed prime minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1999, we've known perfectly well who he is.

After all, one of the first things he did after taking that job was to visit the Lubyanka, the former headquarters of the KGB and its most notorious jail, now the home of the FSB, Russia's internal security services.

There - on the 82nd anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, Lenin's secret police - he dedicated a plaque in memory of Yuri Andropov.

Andropov was director of the KGB for many years before briefly becoming, in 1982, general secretary of the Communist Party. Within Russia, however, he is best remembered for his theory about how to reform the Soviet Union: to put it bluntly, he believed that "order and discipline", as enforced by the methods of the KGB - arrests of dissidents, imprisonment of corrupt officials, the cultivation of fear - would restore the sagging fortunes of the Soviet economy.

There was no nonsense about "perestroika" or "glasnost", let alone joining Western institutions. All of that clearly appealed to Putin, a former secret policemen who first tried to join Andropov's KGB at the tender age of 15.

This is not to say that Putin is Stalin, or even Andropov, or that Putin wants to bring back the Soviet Union. But it does mean that Putin, like most of the people around him, is steeped in the culture of the old KGB.

He has a deep belief in the power of the state to control the life of the nation: events cannot be allowed to just happen, they must be controlled and manipulated.

He has a deep, professional wariness of people who believe otherwise: At a very profound level, he does not believe that Russian citizens will make good political or economic choices if left to their own devices.

In practice, this means that he does not believe that markets can - or should be - genuinely open. He does not believe in unpredictable elections.

He does not believe that the modern equivalent of the Andropov-era dissidents - the small band of journalists and activists who continue to oppose centralised Kremlin rule - have anything important to say; on the contrary, he assumes, as did his KGB predecessors, that anyone not loudly supportive of the regime is a foreign spy.

At a rally in 2007, he declared that: "Unfortunately, there are still those people in our country who act like jackals at foreign embassies … who count on the support of foreign friends and foreign governments, but not on the support of their own people."

This was a direct warning to Russia's few remaining human rights and trade union activists, as they well understood. He continues to believe instead, as Soviet secret policemen did before him, that all important decisions should be made in Moscow by a small, unelected group of people who know how to resist these foreign conspiracies.

Given his world view, it's not very surprising that Putin and his entourage have been so openly hostile, not only towards Georgia, but also towards Ukraine and Estonia, the post-Soviet countries that present the greatest contrast to his vision of Russia.

These, after all, are countries in which genuine elections have taken place - sometimes with the help of street demonstrations - and in which people who have not been picked by the ruling oligarchy can rise to power.

In some cases, they have also moved much farther along the path of genuine economic reform, and at least intend to create real market economies, in which people who have not been picked by the ruling oligarchy can set up businesses and make money.

It is not mere nationalism that makes leaders such as the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, or the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yuschenko, try to escape the political influence of Russia and to move closer to the West: it is also the desire to make their countries more open, more liberal, more authentically democratic.

In that sense, the war between Georgia and Russia really is ideological, and not merely national in origin. Of course Russia retains "great power" instincts, and of course some of the disdain the Russian media shows for Saakashvili represents nothing more than a large country's dislike of defiance from a small one. But the Russian leadership's dislike of Georgia also reflects hatred - and fear - of the kind of democracy that Georgians have chosen.

Georgia's "Rose Revolution", like Ukraine's "Orange Revolution", is precisely the kind of popular uprising that the Russian elite fears most deeply. Putin's paranoia about Georgia is - unlikely though it may sound - at base a paranoia about Russia itself.

What this means, of course, is that any Western support for the Georgian cause will only increase Russian paranoia. And yet, at another level, we have no choice: Western credibility is on the line here, too.

Any outright abandonment of Georgia to Putinist domination will be correctly perceived - not only in the post-Soviet world, but also everywhere else - as an abandonment of an ideological ally, of a country that has chosen, at great cost, to join the West.

What we are left with, then, is not exactly a new Cold War, but an unavoidable, possibly very long-term ideological battle with Russia, above and beyond the normal economic and political competition.

We need to start thinking again about what it means to be "the West", and about how Western institutions - not just Nato, but also the BBC World Service, say, or the British Council - can be brought into the 21st century, not merely to counter terrorism, but to argue the case for Western values, once again.
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LINK: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/15/do1501.xml
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13. UKRAINE'S NATO ACCESSION: POLITICS AS USUAL

Central Europe Digest, Center for European Policy Analysis

Washington, D.C., Friday, 15 August 2008

In all likelihood, the recent crisis in Georgia has sunk that country’s chance to enter NATO anytime soon. But as analysts spar over whether Georgia’s NATO aspirations played a decisive role in precipitating the conflict, Ukraine’s entry looms ever larger on NATO’s agenda.

With full view of Russia’s aggressive and disproportionate response to the South Ossetian crisis, will Ukraine be offered a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the forthcoming meetings of the Alliance in December 2008 or April 2009?

Whereas Germany and France are routinely accused of “blocking” Ukraine’s MAP in Bucharest, ostensibly in response to Vladimir Putin’s hectoring and NATO’s unpopularity among Ukrainians, it is domestic instability and indecisiveness of the Orange Coalition of President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that are the real culprits.

Given the right political will in Kiev, Ukraine’s chances of receiving MAP by next year are actually rather high. The Bucharest Summit last April ended with a joint statement that in unequivocal terms declared that “We agreed today that these countries [Ukraine and Georgia] will become members of NATO.”

At the most recent meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission on June 16, NATO leaders yet again praised Ukraine’s participation in joint military operations and maneuvers. Though a number of reforms are yet to be implemented, the general consensus is that Ukraine has so far “punched above its weight” in cooperating with the Alliance.

Thus, if Yushchenko and Tymoshenko manage to put their differences aside – and if necessary, risk their political careers – the Russia factor and low public support should not present a significant hurdle to Ukraine’s NATO aspirations.

Before the outbreak of recent hostilities in the Caucasus, Western leaders generally agreed that for all of Russia’s intransigence – ranging from the emotional incantations of a brotherly nation “losing its sovereignty” to brazen threats to aim missiles at that same brotherly nation – the Putin/Medvedev ruling tandem are scarcely interested in starting a new Cold War, even over Ukraine. That assumption will now undergo a significant rethinking in the West – and clearly not to Russia’s benefit.

Moreover, with Putin’s recent comments to President Bush that “Ukraine is not even a country” and Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov’s dogged insistence that Crimea is living on borrowed time as a part of Ukraine, one might think the Ukrainian elites – whether from L’viv, Kiev, or Donetsk – should realize that the real threat to their sovereignty lies to the East, not the West.

As the recent Georgia crisis was a direct result of longstanding and festering “frozen conflicts” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Ukrainian elites must now begin considering the frightening repercussions of allowing Crimea – or even the Black Sea port of Sevastopol – to descend into such muddy waters.

As for public opinion, NATO membership should generally not be a matter of broad public acquiescence, but of a conscious geopolitical choice by a consolidated national elite. As part of NATO’s post-Soviet expansion, only Slovenia and Hungary have held referendums on membership – and Hungary’s was nonbinding. Slovakia’s 1997 referendum was declared invalid, as it gathered only 10 percent of eligible voters.

Yet, NATO detractors in Ukraine and abroad often showcase their greatest “counterpoint”: domestic public opinion polls, which routinely show only a minority support for entry. For instance, a poll conducted in June 2008 by the Fund for Public Opinion reported that 55 percent of Ukrainian respondents were against NATO membership, with only 22 percent in favor.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government recently approved a four-year, $6 million “information campaign” to improve NATO’s image. While the jury is still out regarding its effectiveness, even with the best of PR campaigns and outreach programs, the West by now has generally accepted the uncomfortable fact that NATO may never gain broad popularity among Ukrainians, especially in the eastern regions of the country.

Yet, the matter is wrapped up in domestic politics; President Yushchenko signed an agreement (the National Unity Declaration) in 2006 with then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, which stipulated a popular referendum before any decision can be taken on NATO membership.

The last real push for NATO membership by the Orange Coalition came early this year. In January, President Yushchenko, Prime Minister Tymoshenko, and Speaker of the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) Arseniy Yatsenyuk sent a letter to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, reaffirming Ukraine’s commitment to join the Alliance.

When the letter became public, the opposition (Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and the Communist Party) blocked parliamentary work until March 6, relenting only after Yushchenko openly threatened to dissolve the parliament once again.

The deputies returned to work, but not until a resolution stating that “a decision on an international agreement on Ukraine joining NATO shall be taken only as a result of a national referendum” passed by 248 votes in the 450-seat body. Given that the Orange Coalition actually holds a slim two-seat majority, the vote clearly showcased the lack of commitment and party discipline for the Yushchenko/Tymoshenko camp.

After this latest victory for the opposition, it became politics as usual in Ukraine. Gearing up for the 2010 presidential elections, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko remain perennially locked in domestic political battles. After Tymoshenko secured an agreement on gas prices with Gazprom in late July, the Prime Minister has been less willing to openly antagonize Russia on NATO membership.

Despite Yushchenko’s continued vociferous support for the MAP and a constitutional mandate to handle foreign policymaking, he has recently become embroiled in a high-profile public battle with his former political ally David Zhvania, whom Yushchenko accuses of instigating his September 2004 dioxin poisoning.

In addition, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko disagree on about every other domestic issue of relevance to Ukrainian voters: from rampant inflation to the best way to handle the recent horrific floods in the western part of the country.

In short, Ukraine’s political elites lack the political courage and conviction to put aside petty political squabbles to ensure what would amount to a momentous geopolitical breakthrough for their country. The Russia-Georgia war does not change that. Those lambasting Berlin and Paris would do well to re-direct some of their criticism towards Kiev itself.

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NOTE: Igor Khrestin is an analyst and writer specializing in Russian and East European affairs based in Washington, DC. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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LINK: http://www.cepa.org/digest/ukraine-nato-accession-politics-as-usual.php

There are many disputes between the countries, however.

Ukraine has a long-standing issue with the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, a holdover from when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991. Many in Ukraine want the Russians gone in 2017, when the lease agreement expires, but Russia has been suggesting that it intends to stay longer.

Russian politicians also provoke Ukrainian ire by reminding them that the Crimean peninsula was a gift from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954,
giving rise to fears that Moscow might stoke secessionist sentiments in the area, which is part of Ukraine but inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians.

Other supposed slights fan tensions.

One that burns, though perhaps apocryphal, is a supposed conversation between Russia's then-President Vladimir Putin and President Bush during the
April NATO-Russia Council summit in Bucharest, Romania, at which the membership applications of Ukraine and Georgia were delayed.

Putin supposedly told Bush that "Well, you understand, George, Ukraine isn't even a state," according to Russia's newspaper Kommersant, citing a
diplomatic source in attendance.

Many here suspect Russian involvement in the still-unsolved and nearly fatal dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko, who fell ill while he was a presidential
candidate in 2004. The Kremlin backed his rival, Viktor Yanukovych, whose path to power was blocked when the democratic Orange Revolution overturned the results of a rigged election.

Yushchenko flew to Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, earlier this week in a show of support for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, and said Thursday that Russia must seek Ukraine's permission before moving its warships out of port. Russian leaders responded by saying they'd ignore Yushchenko.

The two countries also have an ongoing dispute over the price of natural gas. Ukraine is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, as is much of
Europe, while Russia depends on Ukraine's transit pipelines to carry its gas to customers in other nations.

Even religion is a source of friction in the mainly Orthodox Christian countries. The most recent spat came during last month's events celebrating the 1,020th anniversary of the conversion from paganism to Christianity of Kyivan Rus, the medieval empire from which the modern nations of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus arose.

Yushchenko irritated Moscow by asking Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the nominal leader of the world's Orthodox faithful, to recognize a single Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Currently, Ukrainians are divided, with millions of faithful still loyal to Russian Patriarch Alexei II.

Still, many here also have a hard time imagining a Russian-Ukrainian military conflict.

Ukrainians and Russians share centuries of Slavic kinship - Georgians have a separate cultural history - and rule by czars and Soviets. Ukrainians, stuck
between Hitler and Stalin during World War II, are accustomed to navigating unfavorable geographic positions. Moreover, some 8 million of Ukraine's 46
million people are ethnic Russians.

Polls show that Ukrainians are divided over the prospect of NATO membership, with many opposed and others ambivalent. That ambivalence is clear in
interviews.

"Russia will never invade Ukraine, not even for Sevastopol," said Sergei Ribak, a security guard in Kiev. "This thesis is ridiculous." Others aren't so sure, but draw different conclusions about what Ukraine's foreign policy should be.

"I agree that, under certain circumstances, a Russian invasion of Ukraine is possible," said Elena Guzva, a Kiev homemaker. "That's why Ukraine should be
more serious about maintaining balanced and friendly relations with our eastern neighbor in order to avoid the risk."
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LINK: http://www.heraldonline.com:80/wire/world/story/752294.html
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15. UKRAINE'S PRESIDENT WANTS NEW RUSSIAN FLEET DEAL

The Associated Press, Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, August 16, 2008

KIEV, Ukraine: Ukraine's president has urged Russia to work out an accord on using its Ukraine-based Black Sea Fleet for military purposes. Viktor Yushchenko says Russia's use of the fleet in fighting in neighboring Georgia "showed how Ukraine can be very easily dragged ... into an international conflict against its will."

Under a 1997 lease agreement, Russia's Black Sea Fleet can remain in its historic base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol through 2017. On Wednesday, Ukraine restricted movements of the fleet's ships in response to Russian incursions into Georgia, prompting Russian criticism.

Yushchenko said in a statement on his Web site Friday that he asked his Russian counterpart to launch talks on an accord about the fleet.
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16. SEVASTOPOL PRO-RUSSIAN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS PREPARE MAGNIFICENT

UkrInform - Ukraine News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, August 15, 2008

KYIV - Sevastopol activists of pro-Russian public organizations and parties established duty on the raid for meeting the vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. According to head of the Russian People's Assembly of Sevastopol Oleksandr Kruhlov, the meeting will be magnificent, with flowers and music.

“The whole Sevastopol should find out that squadron is coming back at once and should participate in welcoming,” Kruhlov said. “The ships are returning not only with victory, they participated in saving civilians of South Ossetia from Georgian genocide!”

The group of Russian ships which participated in making Georgia accept peace includes guided weapon cruiser Moskva, guard-ship Smetlivyi, three big assault ships, small guided missile ships and anti-submarine ships, support vessels.

OP-ED: By Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution
Deputy Secretary of State, Clinton Administration
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Fri, Aug 15, 2008; Page A21

Russia has been justifying its rampage through Georgia as a "peacekeeping" operation to end the Tbilisi government's "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" of South Ossetia. That terminology deliberately echoes U.S. and NATO language during their 1999 bombing campaign against Serbia, which resulted in the independence of Kosovo.

Essentially, it's payback time for a grievance that Russia has borne against the West for nine years. The Russians are relying on the conceit that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is today's equivalent of Slobodan Milosevic, and that the South Ossetians are (or were until their rescue by the latter-day Red Army last week) being victimized by Tbilisi the way the Kosovar Albanians suffered under Belgrade.

This analogy turns reality, and history, upside down. Only after exhausting every attempt at diplomacy did NATO go to war over Kosovo. It did so because the formerly "autonomous" province of Serbia was under the heel of Belgrade and the Milosevic regime was running amok there, killing ethnic Albanians and throwing them out of their homes. By contrast, South Ossetia -- even though it is on Georgian territory -- has long been a Russian protectorate, beyond the reach of Saakashvili's government.

An accurate comparison between the Balkan disasters of the 1990s and the one now playing out in the Caucasus underscores what is most ominous about current Russian policy. Seventeen years ago, the Soviet Union came apart at the seams more or less peacefully. That was overwhelmingly because Boris Yeltsin insisted on converting the old inter-republic boundaries into new international ones.

In doing so, he kept in check the forces of revanchism among communists and nationalists in the Russian parliament (which went by the appropriately atavistic name "the Supreme Soviet").

Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapsed into bloody chaos because its leaders engaged in an ethnically and religiously based land-grab. Milosevic, as the best-armed of the lot, tried to carve a "Greater Serbia" out of the flanks of