Posts tagged as:

Caucasus

Georgia claims Russia attacked it again

August 7, 2007

Georgia is claiming that Russia has attacked its territory, after a bomb or missile was launched at the village of Tsitelubani yesterday.  Whatever it was, it didn’t explode.
“Our radars show that these jets flew from Russia and then flew back in the same direction that they had come from.  I assess this fact as an [...]

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Did Russian helicopters attack Georgia?

July 12, 2007

The UN is soon to issue a report on whether Russian helicopters were involved in a recent attack on Georgian government building in the Kodori Valley (link for WSJ subscribers only – alternative link here).  According to the Wall Street Journal:

The choppers hovered in darkness for almost two hours, coordinating a ground-and-air attack on three settlements, [...]

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Georgia catches nuclear smugglers, then lets them go home

July 1, 2007

When the US spent millions of dollars supporting Georgia’s attempts to crack down on nuclear smugglers, I don’t think this was quite the outcome they had in mind:
Georgia… has thwarted another nuclear smuggling attempt. But instead of seizing the car “carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium,” Georgian officials sent the radioactive material [...]

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Putin offers to work on joint missile shield

June 8, 2007

So, after spending the past few weeks ratcheting up the pressure, Putin has made an about turn and offered to work on a ‘joint’ missile shield with the United States.
Details of exactly how such a scheme would work are a little sketchy at the moment, to say the least, but it seems as though the [...]

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Russian helicoptors raid Georgia

March 15, 2007

Georgia is alleging that three Russian helicopters attacked buildings in the Kodori Gorge region of Georgia.  The Kodori Gorge is the part of separatist Abkhazia under Georgian control:
“Three helicopters, preliminarily identified as Mi-24 attack gunships, flew [into the Kodori Gorge] from Russian territory or, to be precise, from the territory of Kabardino-Balkaria,” Rurua said. “They [...]

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Georgia to send 2,000 soldiers to Iraq

March 9, 2007

Georgia is to more than double the size of its forces in Iraq, from 850 to 2,000.  The increase will make Georgia the fourth largest contributor of troops to the Coalition in Iraq, behind the US, UK and South Korea:
In a statement, President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Georgia wanted to do everything possible to help the Iraqi people [...]

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Oil wars

January 8, 2007

It looks as though Russia’s neighbours have made a New Year’s resolution for 2007 – to demonstrate to Russia that they too can flex their energy muscles. In the past few days:

Belarus have slapped a tax on Russian oil transiting Belarus, and siphoning off Transneft’s oil to pay for it.  In response, Transneft have shut [...]

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Two post-Soviet elections

December 10, 2006

It’s been a busy weekend for post-Soviet election watchers with not one, but two elections taking place – a referendum on a new constitution in Nagorno-Karabakh, and a Presidential election in Transdniester.
Nagorno Karabah
In Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of (mostly) Armenians stuck in the middle of Azerbaijan, they’ve been voting in a referendum on their new [...]

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Is Nagorno Karabagh a state?

November 25, 2005

Over at Blogrel, Katy has sparked a debate about whether Nagorno Karabagh is really a state or not:
Why do I ask? Well, if NK doesn’t become part of Armenia and ends up being independent, it will act as a solo state. It’ll need to have legitimate currency, set up systems and institutions more than it [...]

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Ukrainians release Azeri opposition leader

October 20, 2005

This is great news for the state of democracy in Ukraine – and pretty good news for Azerbaijan, too:
Azeri opposition leader Rasul Guliyev, who was arrested en route from the U.S. to his native country has been released from a Ukrainian detention center by a Simferopol court in the southeastern Crimea, local media reported.
The Azeri [...]

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Carnival of the Revolutions

October 11, 2005

This week’s Carnival of the Revolutions is up at Armenian blog Oneworld Multimedia. Onnik has excelled himself with a glut of stories covering Armenia and the FSU, not to mention the rest of the world.
Incidentally, while you’re at Oneworld Multimedia, check out this story about a joint Russian-Armenian exercise in which police practiced quelling [...]

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Neweurasia blogs

October 5, 2005

Neweurasia is a family of weblogs from around Central Asia, put together by the indefatigable Ben Paarmann of thinking-east.net. Currently, the project has launched weblogs from:
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

I’m sure more will follow in the coming weeks – check out their homepage for updates
(And, yes, I found out about this great new project from Nathan at registan.net, [...]

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Georgian President and Ukrainian PM get it on. In a helicopter.

August 9, 2005

That, in a nutshell, is the plot of a new porn movie ‘parodying’ the relationship between Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko:
Yulia, an erotic tale of powerful man-meets-woman with peasant-braid hairstyle, has been partly written by Alexei Mitrofanov, deputy leader of the [Russian] ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party.
The film, in which the [...]

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Russia withdraws first troops from Georgia

August 1, 2005

Following an agreement in May, Russia has finally begun withdrawing from its Georgian base at Batumi.  The first convoy of troops and equipment left on Saturday.  Befitting any Russian military action, all has not gone smoothly, however.
Firstly (and it must be noted, this is more likely the fault of the Georgians than the Russians), visa [...]

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Thinking East – new issue

July 29, 2005

Thinking East Issue 3.5 has just been published with articles covering Central Asia, the Caucasus, plus several more thematic articles on religion. 

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