Observations on Russia's foreign relations under Putin

Post-Soviet Affairs

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 370-376

  Breslauer, George W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

LEADERSHIP; POLITICAL POWER; POLITICAL RELATIONS; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 73649137864     PISSN: 1060586X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2747/1060-586X.24.4.370     Document Type: Article

References (3)

1. The Russian Foreign Ministry at the time declared ominously about the recognition of Kosovo's independence that this "will undoubtedly be taken into account in our relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia" (RIA Novosti, February 17, 2008).
2. In September 2009, the European Union released a long-awaited study of the Russo-Georgian war, which concluded that Georgian military action provoked the war but that Russia had baited Georgia for years and then overreacted to Georgian artillery attacks on the South Ossetian capital; for commentary on, and excerpts from, that report, see Johnson's Russia List (182, October 1, 2009).
3. A useful counter-factual thought experiment would be to speculate as to whether there would have been a Russia-Georgia war in 2008 if the issue of Georgia's eventually joining NATO had never been broached.