MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the United States on Saturday of provoking Moscow by using warships to deliver relief aid to its ally Georgia, with which Russia fought a brief war last month.
"I wonder how they would feel if we now dispatched humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean, suffering from a hurricane, using our navy," Medvedev said, adding that a whole U.S. fleet had been dispatched to deliver the aid.
Good point!
Tension between Moscow and the West had eased when the OSCE security body said on Saturday Russia was allowing its observers to circulate freely throughout Georgia, but the breakaway Georgian region Abkhazia later said it was forging military cooperation with Moscow.
"We've had very good access. I think we're working at it and the Russians are, I'd argue, opening up," said Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb in Avignon, chairman in office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Russia and Georgia fought a brief but intense war after Tbilisi sent in troops to try to seize back the rebel region of South Ossetia, provoking massive retaliation by Moscow.
The revisionist lies of the paper really gets to me, as if Russia had seized South Ossetia. Sigh.
The conflict has dented confidence in the Caucasus as an energy transit route -- Georgia is at the heart of two crucial oil and gas pipelines which bring high-quality crude and gas from booming oil state Azerbaijan to Europe via Turkey.
Cheney, speaking in Italy after a tour of former Soviet states including Georgia, said Russia's leaders "cannot have things both ways."
"They cannot presume to gather up all the benefits of commerce, consultation, and global prestige, while engaging in brute force, threats, or other forms of intimidation against sovereign democratic countries," he said.
The arrogance, hubris, and chutzpah of Cheney truly is staggering!
Analysts have also questioned the feasibility of the ambitious Nabucco gas pipeline project, which would bring Caspian Sea gas to Europe via Georgia, reducing reliance on Russia.
Russian stocks and the rouble have been hurt as foreign investors pull money out because of increased political risk. So far only Nicaragua has followed Russia's lead in recognising the two provinces as independent.
In a setback for Russia, its ex-Soviet security allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation stopped short of doing so late last week.
That is such a lie: Central Asian Republics Back Russia in Caucasus
Yeah, I am tired of the AmeriKan MSM and their lies, yeah!
On Saturday self-styled Abkhaz president Sergei Bagapsh said he expected to reach agreement with Moscow soon on military cooperation. "We're insisting (on military cooperation) and we will ask the Russian Federation to leave Russian troops in Abkhazia," Bagapsh told reporters in the Russian capital, adding that the agreement should be signed within the next few days in Moscow.
"(The Russian military) will also probably be in front of the security zone," he said, referring to a zone set up on the Abkhaz boundary in the early 1990s, when the province fought off Georgian rule. Russian peacekeepers have been based there since.
And that's how this thing started: with Georgia shelling a Russian base.
Oh, by the way, about that fight (MSM left it out): The Abkhazian Holocaust
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