"Georgia to cut diplomatic ties with Russia;Protests troops on its territory" by Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili, Associated Press | August 30, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia - Adding to the tension, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia will not be isolated over its conduct in Georgia and warned Europe that it shouldn't cater to the United States.
"If European countries want to serve the foreign policy interests of the United States, in my view they won't win anything from this," Putin said in an interview with Germany's ARD television before a European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday about the Georgia crisis and relations with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that there was no reason South Ossetia could not exist as an independent state, and that recognition was not meant as a prelude to Russian absorption. But he did not expressly rule it out.
Said Tuesday?! Then WTF is this doing in a report on SATURDAY, readers?
"Soon there will be no North or South Ossetia - there will be a united Alania as part of Russia," South Ossetia's deputy parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoiti said, using another name for Ossetia. "We will live in one united Russian state," he said.
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