Russia was on Monday night on another collision course with the West after Russian MPs voted unanimously to back independence for Georgia’s two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The move — which requires the approval of Russia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev — gives a strong domestic legal basis for the Kremlin to take control of the areas after Russia’s invasion of Georgia this month.
Russia’s upper house, or Federation Council, voted by 130-0 to call on Medvedev to support South Ossetia and Abkhazia’s independence. The Duma passed the same motion by 447-0. Both houses are known for their slavish loyalty to the Kremlin.
The United States and the European Union swiftly denounced the vote. US President George Bush said he was ”deeply concerned” by the move, and the White House said the vice-president, Dick Cheney, would visit Tbilisi next week. The EU said the breakaway regions should remain in Georgia. The German government called the move ”in no way appropriate to either calming or defusing tensions”.
But there were strong signs on Monday night that Moscow remains unmoved by the threat of Western sanctions, which have been growing since Russia invaded Georgia after Georgia’s military incursion into South Ossetia this month.
The US, France, Britain and other EU countries are considering punitive measures. These include ending Nato cooperation with Moscow, freezing Russia’s application to join the World Trade Organisation and suspending its participation in Group of Eight summits.
Speaking in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, however, Medvedev on Monday suggested he would be unconcerned if Nato chose to sever ties. This would be ”no great loss”, he said. ”If they choose to break off this relationship, even the whole of it, nothing terrible will happen.”
Medvedev’s comments signal a further deterioration in Russia’s fraught relations with the West. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has convened a special EU meeting on Georgia on Monday to consider future relations with Moscow.
‘Cause for concern’
The meeting comes amid growing dismay at Russia’s failure to comply with the ceasefire agreement and pull out all of its troops.
Russia has previously stopped short of recognising the regions’ independence. But Moscow is likely to use the votes to pressure the international community into accepting Abkhazia and South Ossetia as no different from Kosovo — whose US-backed declaration of independence in February was vehemently opposed by Russia and Serbia.
The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently indicated a change by saying that Georgia could ”forget about” its territorial integrity. But promoting separatism in the Caucasus holds dangers for Russia, which faces growing insurgencies in its southern republics and has fought two brutal wars combating separatism in Chechnya.
One analyst said it was unlikely that the Kremlin would unilaterally recognise South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence. ”This would be more troublesome and problematic for Russia,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.
Russia’s preferred ”scenario” would be for the two to eventually win Kosovo-style acceptance, he said, rather than suffer the unresolved fate of Turkish-backed northern Cyprus.
”My guess is that this vote is a means to achieve better conditions for international negotiations,” he added.
Georgia’s national security council secretary, Alexander Lomaia, said the Kremlin would isolate itself if it recognised the regions, which have enjoyed de facto independence since the early 1990s.
”If it does this, Russia will further isolate itself from the entire world, and will force the international community to seek more active ways to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia,” he told Reuters.
Georgia on Monday said Russian troops continued to occupy much of the country. In the Black Sea port of Poti, south of Abkhazia, Russian soldiers drove into the port terminal and took away computers and photocopiers in armoured personnel carriers, Georgian officials said.
The deputy chief of Russia’s army staff, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said his troops were merely performing peacekeeping duties, adding that the EU-brokered ceasefire deal allowed them to be there, despite the fact that it calls for Russian forces to return to the positions they occupied before the war started.
He said Russian troops were needed in Poti, not least because of the arrival in the area of Nato ships: ”The fact that there are nine Western warships in the Black Sea cannot but be a cause for concern.” —