Russia cured it.

The United States should mind its own business.

End of story.

Sure they are that, but don’t you think they might have a good reason to be that way?!

Latvia, for example, has a total population of 2.3 million, of whom around a third are ethnic Russians — 363,000 of them Latvian citizens, 278,000 non-citizens, and 22,000 Russian passport-holders.

In Estonia, around a quarter of the population of 1.3 million are Russian-speakers — including 150,000 naturalised Estonians, around 100,000 non-citizens and a similar number of Russian passport-holders, including the teenage traveller Kravets.

Lithuania adopted more liberal citizenship rules from the outset and has far fewer non-nationals among its total population of 3.2 million — it is home to 12,000 Russian citizens and 5,900 non-citizens.

As for temperament, Ukrainians in oblasts under Russian cultural influence are more likely to associate themselves with their eastern brothers than people in the rest of the country. Ukraine is a country where there are sharp geopolitical divisions, where voting in the West (e.g. strong support for Yushchenko’s “Nasha Ukraina” block in the west, just the opposite in the east).

As far as Russian citizens elsewhereare concerned. Russians constitute 25% of the population of Estonia. About a half of these are Russian passport holders. Russian citizens exist in all the FSU countries. Putin has championed the “cause” of ethnic Russians in the FSU, and uses this as a pretext to interfere in their internal affairs. It doesn’t matter, in the end, whether these ethnic Russians hold Russian or non-Russian passports.

As far as Shevardnadze is concerned, he has roundly denounced the Russian occupation of Georgia. Not surprising that this little tidbit didn’t make it into this article:

Paris – Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze Tuesday labeled Russia a threat to Europe and called for Moscow to be punished for its invasion of Georgia.

‘The Georgia conflict is a test,’ the former Soviet foreign minister told the French daily Le Parisien. ‘If the Europeans let Russia away with this, what guarantee can they then give Poland or the Baltic states if the scenario repeats itself?’

Shevardnadze called on the European Union and the US to extend financial and humanitarian help to Georgia. ‘And why not military help also?,’ he added. ‘The penalty for Russia should be its withdrawal from Georgia and the assurance that it will make no similar new attempt.’

The disinformstion from Eric the Red is legion. No, the Americans didn’t “encourage” Saakashvili to send his troops into Tskhinvali. In fact, he was warned not to let himself fall into a Russian trap. Why is the action of a foreign leader in trying to have good relations with the U.S. “an odious game?” There are plenty of “odious games” going on in the Caucasus but Eric, with his usual double standards (”everything the Russians do is right, or ’self-protection’ whereas everything the West or U.S. does is wrong, or odious.”) fails to see the forest from the trees.

With what “historical justification” could the Russians annex the Crimea? Maybe they have the same justification for taking back Alaska? Eric (Simon) loves to scream about “blatant provocations of Russia,” but what does he think Russia is doing vis-a-vis its neighbors?
(suggestion: some of the independent Russian media has come out with some very significant analyses of how Russia planned these moves in August in advance. On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the “fraternal assistance to the working people of Czechoslovakia,” it’s instructive to see the parallels, including the holding of military maneuvers just prior to occupying the country.

The Ukrainians are very unlike the Russians in temperament but very like the Poles. I would guess, therefore, that the point about offering early warning facilities to the US is that they see the Poles (with far from perverse logic!) ripping off the US taxpayer for huge amounts of money for a missile system that will never be operational and want a slice of the same cake. They have no more intention of starting a war with Russia than the Poles and both know that the Russians are aware of that. The thing about Europe is never to be fooled by rhetoric!

The same is true of Merkel’s remark. Since Americans always fall hook, line and sinker for the superficial and fail to notice that they’ve been diddled in regard to the substantive reality, I would guess they she thinks (probably rightly) that the US will accept what she said as gospel while Europe pushes the date on this wondrous event comes to pass ever further into the future. Look at Iran sanctions and the Turkish EU application for examples of the same tactic.

Ditto for the various Russian comments. Just part of the European political minuet!
Note carefully, though Medvedev’s careful formulation about protecting “Russian citizens”. There are practically no Russian citizens outside of Russia! The big gripe of the ethnic Russians in Estonia, for example, is, precisely, that Russia refuses to grant them citizenship. The old, and particularly the retired party fat cats, would willingly go back to Russia if Russia would only let them!

There have been no reports in Europe of any difference in the document signed by Saakashvili and Russia. As a matter of common sense, if the parties don’t sign identical documents, there is no agreement and nobody is claiming that! Normally, there are two copies. Each party signs one and sends it to the other who then signs it and sends it back. If the document received from Saakashvili was different from the one they had sent him, the Russians would never have signed it and Saakashvili would now be complaining that the Russians were refusing to sign the ceasefire. Idem for the slowness of the Russian pullout from Gori. Since they have to pull out soon in any event, I don’t see why hanging on for a few days more will change anything!

Yes we were reading the same article and while I take your point, I can’t agree with the rabid and insulting manner in which you go about presenting the argument – perhaps to cover up the fact that the argument has nothing to stand on.

The witty Shevardnadze, who is also a former Soviet foreign minister, said the crisis would not cause a new Cold War, as “the new Cold War has long since been instigated by the USA , through the Americans’ so-called missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland.”

Meanwhile, US military planes are flying in “aid” and the US has announced it will henceforth have a permanent presence in Georgia.

Because of the very real threat that Georgian troops, backed by their American friends, could easily try again to destabilise things, the Russians are understandably unwilling to abandon the western Georgian city of Gori, which has a military base.

Jon. were we reading the same artical ?

This is the most racist B.S. in the world. Are you trying to tell us that all the other leaders in the world are too stupid to plan their own operations? People who think this are indeed creating the American Empire if not in fact at least in their own minds.