“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 act of aggression carried out by planes flown from the territory of another state,” said Vano Merabishvili, Georgia’s Interior Minister. 

Russia, of course, denies the claim. 

Did they do it?  Who knows.  I can think of a number of reasons why Russia might have wanted to order such an attack, and even more reasons why they woudn’t.  I can think of a fair few reasons as to why Georgia might want to discredit Russia, and I can think of a couple of places the attack might have come from that aren’t even in Russia.

I expect a war of words followed by another UN investigation which, like the last one which examined whether Russian helicopters had attacked Georgia, firmly avoids drawing any firm conclusions.

Perhaps, instead, its time for the UN monitoring mission in the region to be equipped with radars, instead of bureaucrats in uniforms?

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, according to more than 50 witnesses interviewed by United Nations-led investigators. Minutes before they left, a guided missile designed to be fired by helicopters struck a Georgian government building.

No one was killed in the attacks, which were little-noted in the West at the time. But four months later, they look set to cause waves on a global stage as the U.N.-led probe issues a final report on the incident as early as this week. The Wall Street Journal has seen two preliminary reports.

Frustratingly, though, despite having allegedly seen the reports, the Journal then goes on to say precisely nothing about their contents, restricting itself to speculation about what the final draft of the report:

The final report has to be approved by experts from both Russia and Georgia and is likely to reflect the politically sensitive nature of the debate. People familiar with the matter say Russia and Georgia are haggling over one key point: Russia is pushing to include language that indicates there is no hard evidence to conclude that helicopters were even in the area that night, despite the witness testimony.

So, expect the report to be suitably vague.

By the way, has it occurred to anyone that, if a Russian helicopter was involved in the attack, it may have been on a ‘freelance’ mission - hired on the black market by someone in Abkhazia to undertake the attack for money.

(Thanks to Mark MacKinnon for the link - he’s written more on the implications of the report here.

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 back to Azerbaijan.

Oops.

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 Kremlin envisage a system built primarily around the radar station they currently rent in Azerbaijan.

Dmitri Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, insisted that a radar base in Azerbaijan would be sufficient to cover the whole of western Europe and that the use of Poland for interceptor rockets should be reconsidered. “The two sides could completely share the technological data of that station with equal control of the station . . . It would lead to a substantial easing of tension and it will solve the problem.”

In principle, I think it’s a good idea - and, with the benefit of my 20-20 hindsight - makes Putin’s brinkmanship of the past few weeks seem much more logical. Lets face it, Russia is at much at risk of missile attack from ‘rogue’ nations or terrorist groups as Western Europe and the United States - if not more so - and a joint missile shield does seem the logical way forward.

But will it happen in practice? I can see plenty of potential problems.

For starters, there is the whole trust issue. An effective joint shield would require a lot of actual joint working, and there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest that Russia and the US could work well together on such a politically charged project. Although, having said that, there’s always a first time for everything…

Technical issues are also going to come to the forefront. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, although welcoming Russia’s joint missile shield proposal, argued that a shield located in Azerbaijan wouldn’t be able to react in time to incoming missiles:

“It’s a bit close to the rogue states we are discussing.”

A shield located primarily in Azerbaijan wouldn’t cover all of NATO’s member states either.

I suppose this could be overcome by stationing the main radar in Azerbaijan, and the interceptor missiles somewhere else - say, in Poland - but for this would not only require phenomenal co-ordination, but would still probably require radars to be stationed too close to Russia’s Western borders. And wasn’t the whole point of Azerbaijan to avoid that…?

Ultimately, I don’t think this is anything more than a good idea, destined to failure - but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Update: For the true cynics among us, here another explantion as to why Putin offered to develop a joint missile shield based in Azerbaijan:

I think that the Russian base, there in Qabala [Azerbaijan] is getting ready — they’re going to lose the base, the lease on the base is going to expire, and they’ve already been making plans to relocate the radar to Krasnodar [Krai, in Russia]. And so what they’re trying to do here is legitimize their presence in Azerbaijan at the expense of the Azerbaijanis. And they will also permanently make the United States a target of the Iranians, and the Azeris, and it’s designed to divide the United States and Azerbaijan. And it creates a Russian military presence there, if I understand the statement correctly.

Cunning, or what?

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 made a circle above the villages of Upper Abkhazia, and as they were making a second circle they dropped about 20 unguided rockets, or so-called NURS [Russian-made unguided] rockets.”

Nathan at Registan has more analysis:

Regardless of whether or not Russia is to blame for the incident, this situation underlines just how inappropriate it is for Russia to be involved in peacekeeping operations for the conflicts between Georgia and its separatist regions.

He goes on to note that Georgia is no angel either, and doesn’t hesitate to use the presence of Russian peacekeepers as an excuse to ratchet up tensions when it suits.

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 and US-led forces to bring peace and freedom to the country.

The move comes on the back of recent US Congress for Georgian moves towards membership of NATO. 

I also wonder if the Georgian government’s decision to send extra troops abroad signifies a growing confidence in the stability of the security situation within Georgia itself.  2,000 men, after all, is a significant proportion of the Georgian army. 

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 off the oil supply to huge chunks of Central Europe.
• Azerbaijan have stopped exporting oil to Russia, after failing to agree a price
• Georgia have signed a deal to buy gas from Turkey, instead of Russia (actually this was late last year, but its always good to get a headstart on New Year’s resolutions…).

Some of these moves are sensible, others aren’t. Either way, though, these moves don’t do Russia a lot of good – as ye reap, so shall ye sow.

(By the way - I’m posting this by phone while on the move, so no links at the moment. I’ll update with links tomorrow, but you can find details of each of these stories on the BBC News website).

Belarus’ decision to slap an oil tax of $45 per tonne on Russian oil transiting through Belarus (mostly en route to Poland and Germany) strikes me as an ill-considered reaction to the already signed deal to increase the rate Belarus pays for Russian gas to the global market rate. Effectively, it seems as though, Belarus have launched their counteroffensive after the war’s decisive battle has been lost. By taking this approach now, Belarus will bear the brunt of German and Polish irritation. And, what will they actually gain?

Azerbaijan’s decision is an odd one, which broke just as I was writing this article. There are conflicting reports as to what has actually happened, with some news agencies reporting that they have cut of oil supplies to Russia, others reporting that they have cut off supplies to Europe that were transiting through Russia. I wonder, though, if it will achieve all that much, other than to make Azerbaijan seem like yet another unreliable supplier of oil in Western European eyes. Things may become clearer by the morning – if so, I’ll post an update.

Georgia’s decision strikes me as much more sensible. Now that Russia is no longer offering massive subsidies on the price of gas, it isn’t an attractive choice of supplier. These days, countries perceive Russia as an unreliable supplier - one prone to using its gas supplies as a weapon. Given this, if a country can find another country willing to supply gas at the same price as Russia, they’d have to be crazy not to switch suppliers. (and in this case, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that Turkey either undercut Russia’s prices, or offered some kind of sweetener to smooth the deal’ progress).

Russia is the biggest loser in this whole debacle. As I mentioned above, they way they’ve handled these price increases - linking them to political threat, and using them to bully countries into selling energy assets for a song - has created a perception among their customers - current and future - that they are an unreliable, unprincipled and bullying business partner.

Russia may well earn more per cubic meter of gas sold than it did last year, but if it is not careful, it may well find that is has less and less customers for its gas, driving down overall income. At the same time it will have lost friends around the globe, making its geopolitical aims that much harder to achieve.

Update: Tim comments below that “Russia is playing an exceptionally strong hand very very badly”.

This mornings newspapers show just how badly Russia has handled things, and how poor its image is in European capitals.  Splashed all over the front page of the (London) Times in big bold type is the headline “Russia turns off Europe’s oil supply“.

(While technically, the headline is correct - Russian firm Transneft turned off the oil - I’m more inclined to pin the blame on Belarus.  They imposed a ludicrously large tax on Russian oil transported through Belarussian pipelines and, when Transneft didn’t pay, began to siphon off oil in lieu of payment.  True, this was done in response to the way Russia imposed huge gas price increases on Belarus but, as I’ve explained above, I don’t think this was a particularly sensible reaction by Belarus).

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 constitution.

The constitution, which describes Nagorno-Karabakh as a “sovereign, independent state” is likely to boost hopes of independence from Azerbaijan.

Turnout was apparently above 80%, and the new constitution is expected to be approved by an overwhelming majority.

But, guess who’s unhappy with the election?

[T]he government of Azerbaijan says the referendum is being held under an illegal military occupation of Azeri territory.

This election was observed by monitors from the EU. They thought the election was well organised, free and fair.

Interfax have dug up the following comment though:

Luciano Ardesi, an observer from Italy and head of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said the referendum observed all voting standards.

“What the people of Nagorno Karabakh did today is quite legitimate. The international community must recognize the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to either establish its own state or join Armenia,” he said.

From the wording of the Interfax article, it’s not clear if Ardesi is an official spokesman for the EU election monitors, or just some random supporter of independence for Nagorno-Karabakh who happened to be in town while they were holding a referendum. If the former, then the EU are going to have some explaining to do, if the latter then Interfax will be the ones who end up with egg on their faces.

Transdniester

Meanwhile, over in the tiny sliver of Moldvoa that doesn’t really like being a part of Moldova they’ve been electing a President this weekend. Igor Smirnov, the incumbent, is likely to romp home in an election that the cynic in me thinks probably won’t be all that free or all that fair.

Smirnov plans to use his ‘victory’ to push for union with Russia:

“We have defined a scheme: at first, this is referendum, then elections and later the achievement of the goal set at the referendum - integration with Russia. This shows once again that we are building our own state. Democracy is not drawn, it can be born,” he said.

Russia likes Transdniester’s pro-Russian government, but enough to contemplate a formal union? Fat chance.

The Moldovan government, as you’d imagine, isn’t all that impressed with the democratic credentials of Transdniester’s election:

Moldova’s Foreign Ministry has called the election in Trans-Dniester “illegal,” and has asked other countries not to send international monitors. The ballot was observed, however, by dozens of Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers.

No idea what the Ukrainians thought of the election. But the Russian observers thought it was magnificent.

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 has today… thoughts? Is NK a state? Could it be a state? If it isn’t a state, what would it have to do to be a state? No battles here, but positive discussion…

According to the Montevideo Convention, it seems that NK (as it’s affectionately known) should be a state. But, of course, in the real world it’s not.

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 side could not provide evidence that the criminal case launched in Baku against Guyliev was not politically motivated. Most of the documents sent to Simferopol were reportedly only uncertified photocopies.

When I heard a couple of days ago that Guliyev had been arrested as his plane landed in Ukraine, and that Ukraine had been asked to extradite him to Azerbaijan I had initially feared that, placed in a difficult situation, Ukraine might cave in and extradite Guliyev.

They could very easily have decided that one man wasn’t worth the trouble of alienating a potential ally in the CIS, and quietly put him on a plane to Baku.

Happily, though, the Ukrainian authorities have decided that their relationship with Azerbaijan’s government is worth less to them than the freedom of a pro-democracy opponent of the regime, showing that the principles of the Orange Revolution are still holding firm and more than that - Ukraine’s commitment to promoting democracy in other CIS states also remains strong.

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 anti-government uprisings. The question that comes to mind is who is learning what from whom? Perhaps this is Armenia’s turn to be the teacher…

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, who hears about everything before I do…!).

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 two main characters join the mile-high club during a tryst on a helicopter, begins shooting next
week and looks set for its theatrical release at underpasses and train stations across Moscow by the end of the year.

They’ll be called Yulia and Mikheil, but without surnames. Everyone, however, can see that they are VIPs, said Mitrofanov, who is known for his sharp tongue and nationalist rhetoric.

There will be no real names, as we don’t want any arguments with heads of state, he said.

However, Yulia will definitely have Tymoshenko’s trademark Princess Leia-esque hairdo, he insisted, just in case anyone did not understand whom the film would be about.

Officials in Georgia and Ukraine were definately not amused. I don’t think anyone from the Kremlin had the balls to comment.

Nobody has yet been cast in the role of Mikhail Saakashvili, but the 44 year old Yulia Timoshenko will be played by 19 year old Ukrainian porn starlet  Elena Berkova*. Yes, that’s right - 19. Either Berkova has had a rough life, or Timoshenko has aged remarkably well…

*I feel it is my duty to inform you that the link to Elena Berkova’s website is most definitely NOT safe for work.

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 regulations meant a one day delay:

Russian officials claimed Georgia had failed to issue licences for the vehicles and re-entry visas for drivers escorting the column.

And then, mere moments after leaving the base complex, the convoy was forced to halt in order to repair one of its vehicles:

The column stopped 250 meters after since one of the cars needed to be repaired urgently. After a few hours of the repairs, the vehicles started crawling again because the hardware that was being pulled out was heavily depreciated.

Cock-ups aside, it’s good to see that the Russian exit was not accompanied by aggressive crowds. Instead flowers were thrown and champagne was drunk by local residents, many of whom were employed by the base, and will probably have mixed feelings about their departure, :

Georgian TV showed local people saying goodbye to the departing vehicles.

"We promised that when they left we would bid them farewell and we wish them a good trip," Ketevan Antidze told Imedi TV.

Another bystander, Giorgi Charkviani, said it was a friendly farewell.

"We welcome their decision to leave so we are extending the hand of friendship - they are our friends," he said.

A peaceful sendoff like this will certainly help when it comes to mending the fractured relationship between the two countries in the future and they hopefully move towards a more-co-operative future.  It also gives the Russian media no ammunition against Georgia to delay the withdrawal - imagine the response if bricks had been thrown at the departing troops, rather than flowers.

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