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A former mayor of Vladikavkaz, in Russia's troubled North Caucasus, has been shot dead in his car, police say. Kazbek Pagiyev's car came under a hail of bullets, killing him and his driver, in Vladikavkaz, the capital of Russia's republic of North Ossetia. Mr Pagiyev stood down as deputy prime minister in North Ossetia last week, Russian news agencies report. He served as mayor until December 2007, when he was replaced by Vitaly Karayev, who was killed by a gunman last month. Mr Pagiyev had been mayor for five years in North Ossetia, which lies near Chechnya, and has been...

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A senior Russian officer was fatally wounded when his car came under fire in the Dagestan region of southern Russia on Monday, Russian news agencies reported. Major General Valery Lipinsky, deputy commander of the North Caucasus arm of Russia's Interior Ministry forces, died in hospital from chest wounds, Interfax news agency quoted an official in the local prosecutor's office as saying. Lipinsky was travelling through the regional capital of Makhachkala when it came under fire, the RIA agency reported. Gun and bomb attacks in Russia's Northern Caucasus regions are common, although they rarely result in...

MOSCOW - Russia's top military officer warned that Moscow felt threatened by U.S. policy in ex-Soviet Central Asia and claimed that Washington was attempting to establish new military bases there, news agencies reported Tuesday. Gen. Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian military's general staff, said Washington planned to establish a foothold in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Interfax and ITAR-Tass reported. U.S. officials denied there were plans. Makarov also said U.S. support for bids by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO made Russia feel threatened. He cast doubt that relations between the countries would improve under Barack Obama. "According to our...

Perhaps hoping to emulate the devil's imputed success in convincing much of humanity that he does not exist, Russian propagandists have taken great pains over the past several years to persuade the world that the war in Chechnya is over, and the region is on the fast track to stability and prosperity. No effort has been spared in ensuring that the Russian spin on the situation is heard loud and clear and remains unchallenged. Even with official accreditation, no foreign journalist is allowed to travel within Chechnya unchaperoned. Vast swathes of the republic still remain off-limits to outside observers. Human...

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov opened one of Europe's biggest mosques in the rebuilt capital of the southern Russian region Friday, saying it was proof Russian rule and Islam can go together. The mosque, named "The Heart of Chechnya" and constructed by Turkish builders, can host up to 10,000 worshippers. Its minarets rise as high as 62 m (200 ft) and the complex extends over 14 hectares (35 acres), including a vast garden. "With the start of the Chechen war, the enemies of Islam and foes of Russia alleged that Russia wages war against Islam and the...

LETTER FROM MOSCOW The war in Georgia has provoked unprecedented levels of patriosm in Russia. The majority of the population supported their army's actions in the Caucasus. And even the fiercest critics of the Kremlin have now become proud Russians. REUTERS Members of the Kremlin-loyal youth organisation "Nashi" wave flags and hold a banner during a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow during the Georgia war. I never thought I’d see the day when regular Russians, without any prompting, would voluntarily and passionately defend the actions of the Kremlin in conversations with a foreign friend. But at...

MOSCOW: A car bomb in the capital of South Ossetia on Friday killed nine Russian peacekeepers and wounded three others, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory. President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had "no doubt" that Georgian special forces were behind the explosion in the capital, Tskhinvali. The acts, he said, "undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan." The blast came six days before a deadline for Russia to pull back from the so-called buffer zone outside South Ossetia, yielding a large...

ROSTOV-ON-DON, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Two soldiers were killed and three injured in separate attacks by militants in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia on Thursday, the local Interior Ministry said. A ministry spokesman told RIA Novosti said that unknown assailants had opened fire on ministry troops who were in a Lada car on the Caucasus highway near Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran. Two soldiers were killed and one was wounded in the attack. In a separate incident, a motorized column of military servicemen was involved in a road accident near Nazran. When soldiers left their vehicles, militants opened fire...

Armenia hosted on Monday the first NATO-led military exercises in the South Caucasus since the recent Russian-Georgian war, underlining its intention to continue to deepen security ties with the West despite the latter’s confrontation with Russia. About one thousand troops from 17 nations, eight of them NATO members, will practice in the next three weeks joint military and humanitarian operations at the training ground of Armenia’s main military academy located on the northern outskirts of Yerevan. An opening ceremony there was led by Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and Lieutenant General John Gardner, the U.S. deputy commander of NATO’s Land Component...

Having devastated vast areas of its own lands in the Caucasus, such as Chechnya and Ingushetia, in order to "protect" them from instability, Moscow's obliterating shadow has settled deep over Georgia -- with the usual consequences. The full barbarism of Russian actions in Georgia may not emerge for years; much of the evidence lies behind the lines in terrain newly annexed by Russia. But some details are now beyond dispute. Alongside the various human atrocities, such as the bombing and purging of civilian areas, the invaders looted and destroyed numerous historical sites, some of which were profoundly revered by the...

GUDERMES, Russia (Reuters) - A Chechen warlord on Thursday accused the Russian region's pro-Kremlin leader of killing his brother and vowed to take revenge, pitching the two most powerful men in Chechnya against each other. Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied any role in the shooting. About 70 to 80 men -- mainly family members and loyal fighters -- attended the funeral of Ruslan Yamadayev in the town of Gudermes east of the Chechen capital Grozny. Gunmen killed the former parliamentary deputy as he drove through the center of Moscow Wednesday evening. "I accuse Ramzan Kadyrov of the murder of...

MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Three people have been found dead in Ingushetia, while in separate attacks another two were wounded and the deputy interior minister's official car was blown up, law enforcement sources said Tuesday. The incidents all occurred in the Russian North Caucasus republic late Monday, when one soldier was also injured in a grenade attack in neighboring Chechnya The latest took place at approximately 23:47 Moscow time (19:47 GMT) when unknown people fired a grenade at an Interior Ministry arms store in Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran, injuring two servicemen. At around 20:30 Moscow time (16:30 GMT)...

MOSCOW — A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture. Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital. (edit) The Khazars were a Turkic tribe that roamed the steppes from Northern China...

Grozny, which I last saw as an immense heap of rubble, is now a truly impressive sight, with fine modern apartment blocks and a beautiful Turkish-built mosque, modeled on the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, towering over the main square. Grozny as it now stands is a vast improvement on the city as it stood before the war of 1994, when it was a dirty, run-down Soviet industrial city with grim, shabby architecture, very few amenities—and no visible mosques at all. ... It may, however, have been a help in the reconstruction that the current population of 228,000 is less than...

MOSCOW, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - A soldier was killed and two others injured when gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons on their vehicle near the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a health official said on Thursday. According to the source, the soldiers, members of the Defense Ministry's Zapad (West) battalion, were traveling in a Mitsubishi vehicle when the shots were fired at around 10:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday. As a result of the shooting, one soldier died, while the unit commander and another serviceman were injured. In a separate incident in neighboring Daghestan's capital, five...

Stockholm - The recent war between Russia and Georgia would have 'profound consequences' on international relations, according to the Swedish Defence Research Agency. 'The Russian actions were the result of deliberate and premeditated choices,' researcher Robert Larsson said, noting Russia's decision to enter the conflict, and to use a 'relatively large portion of violence' and then to recognize breakaway regions in Georgia. Larsson made his remarks at the launch of a 153-page study titled 'The Caucasian Litmus Test: Consequences and Lessons of the Russian- Georgian War in August 2008.' Larsson, editor and one of 14 contributors to the study, said...

Four Russian soldiers have been shot dead in the southern region of Ingushetia, Russian news agencies reported, in the latest attack on federal forces in the increasingly unstable North Caucasus republic. The bodies of the four interior ministry servicemen were found with gunshot wounds by an armed patrol near the village of Galashki on Wednesday afternoon, Vasily Panchenkov, the aide to Russia's interior troops commander, told Interfax news agency. A source in the investigative department of the Ingush prosecutor's office told Interfax later that the soldiers had probably been shot from a nearby forest. Another four servicemen and three gunmen...

A visit to Georgia by senior Nato officials this week was anti-Russian and showed the alliance is driven by Cold War-style thinking, Russia's Foreign Ministry said today. "Decisions taken ... confirmed that in Nato, the Cold War-era reflexes of 'them and us' are at work once again," a statement said. "We cannot view steps to intensify relations between the alliance and Georgia any other way than as encouragement for new adventures ... We believe the alliance's session in Tbilisi in the current conditions was not timely and does not help stabilisation in the region." The statement said the visit showed...

The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvili. Some Western intelligence reports have undermined Tbilisi's version of events and there are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for an independent investigation. But now, five weeks after the end of the war in the Caucasus, the winds have shifted in America. Even Washington is beginning to suspect that Saakashvili, a friend and ally, could in fact be a gambler -- someone who triggered the bloody five-day war and then told the West bold-faced lies....

Georgia produced telephone intercepts on Tuesday it said proved Russian armour entered Georgia hours before the start of a Georgian attack that Moscow said forced it to send in its troops. The release of the intercepts comes as both Moscow and Tbilisi wage a diplomatic and public relations campaign to prove the other side fired the first shot in a war that killed hundreds of people and caused widespread devastation. Russia said the evidence was "not serious". The force movements referred to in the intercepts may, it said, have been a routine rotation by Russian peacekeeping forces already operating in...

Georgia has released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armored regiment crossed into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia nearly a full day before Georgia’s attack on the capital, Tskhinvali, late on Aug. 7. ... The back and forth over who started the war is already an issue in the American presidential race, with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate, contending that Russia’s incursion into Georgia was “unprovoked,” while others argue that Georgia’s shelling of Tskhinvali was provocation. Georgia claims that its main evidence — two of several calls secretly recorded...

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia: Militants battled security forces in Ingushetia, killing four security officers as rising violence threatens to further destabilize the troubled southern Russian region, officials said Monday. Sunday's gunbattle also killed two militants and left eight officers wounded, the Ingush Interior Ministry said. The Interfax news agency, meanwhile, reported that that the deputy chief of regional Federal Security Service was killed in the operation.

MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - The president of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya has said that a street in the capital Grozny will be named after an ex-commander killed in Sunday's plane crash in the Urals. Gennady Troshev, 61, a former commander of the North Caucasus Military District, was one of the 88 people killed in the Boeing-737-500 crash outside Perm. He had received a Hero of Russia award for his service. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's announcement was quoted by TV channel Vesti. Troshev commanded federal forces during the 1994-1996 First Chechen War, and became the top commander...

Moscow - The ceasefire between Russia and Georgia has not calmed down the Caucasus. While inhabitants of Georgia's separatist enclaves Abkhazia and South Ossetia celebrate formal recognition by Russia as independent nations, hardly a day goes by without bloodshed in Russia's North Caucasus regions Ingushetia and Dagestan. Since the shooting dead in August of Ingush opposition journalist Magomed Yevloyev, calls to break away from Russia have grown louder in Ingushetia. Russian media report that even in hitherto tranquil Russian regions such as Tatarstan and Bashkiria, Muslim separatists have become more independence-minded of late. For years, Russia's leaders have sought to...

Poland Was Right by TOL 12 September 2008 The need is greater than ever for the EU to embrace Warsaw’s Eastern Partnership. Georgia’s military is a wreck, its economic locomotive derailed, and even a drunken gambler would think twice before wagering on its political future. In Ukraine, the unhappy marriage between the president and prime minister grows more desperate, while the country remains riven over whether it belongs with the East or West. If this picture from behind the old Iron Curtain isn’t enough to bring on depression, look again. Moldova worries that Russia could launch another “humanitarian intervention” in...

Could the Kremlin censor an entertainment programme on live TV? According to Russian bloggers, that's exactly what happened on one of the country's national television channels. The programme, "Phenomenon," aired on the state-run Rossiya channel on Sept. 5. In the live broadcast, Russian magician and self-styled psychic Alexander Char played a version of the children's game Cluedo, telling the audience that the details of a murder were in a safe. Then he asked three audience members to name first a weapon, then a place, then the person who committed the crime. The first guinea pig in the audience chose a...

GROZNY -- Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has accused the United States of fomenting unrest in the Caucasus and emboldening Georgia to launch an attack on South Ossetia. Speaking to members of the Valdai Discussion Club at his residence near Grozny, he said Russia's crushing defeat of Georgian troops in their brief war was the appropriate response. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "was dancing to someone else's tune," Kadyrov said during the one-hour briefing. "He started a war, an inhuman war. ... The United States was testing Russia through Georgia, and Russia reacted decisively." He backed Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and...

Tatarstan is a long way from South Ossetia. Where South Ossetia is a poor border region of Georgia battered by war, Tatarstan is an economic powerhouse in the heart of Russia, boasting both oil reserves and the political stability that is catnip to investors. But the two places have one thing in common: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both have given rise to separatist movements. And when President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia formally recognized the breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations two weeks ago, activists in Kazan, the Tatar capital, took notice. An association...

Grozny, September 10, Interfax - Chechnya has set a date of opening the Ahmad Kadyrov's mosque, which is to be the biggest in Europe. "Ceremony of opening is planned for October 17. The 2nd international peacemaking forum Islam: a Religion of Peace and Creativity is to open the same day in Grozny," the republic's president Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax. According to him, "people of the Chechen Republic first time in sixty years will have a possibility to have a grand mosque in Grozny and conduct Islamic religious rites there." "All the mosques were closed, destroyed and robbed in the Chechen...

It seems that US Vice President Dick Cheney caused a scene during his recent visit to Azerbaijan when his hosts declined to follow his script.Over the past few days, details have leaked out that indicate that Cheney’s September 3 visit to Baku was a spectacular diplomatic failure.

MOSCOW, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The head of the Russian region of Ingushetia, facing protests over the killing of an opposition leader, accused Washington on Monday of stirring trouble with the aim of ending Russian rule in the volatile north Caucasus. Opposition in the north Caucasus region mounted protests against Kremlin-backed Ingush President Murat Zyazikov after the death of Magomed Yevloyev on Aug. 31 in police custody. Police said Yevloyev was shot dead when he tried to grab an officer's gun. The European Union and the U.S. have urged Russian authorities to investigate Yevloyev's death, which Europe's democracy watchdog the...

Russia’s Restless Muslim Republics By Uwe Klussmann Although Russia is celebrating the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it still has its own problems in the region as its Muslim republics are drifting toward a partisan war. Last Monday, an eerie funeral procession passed through the center of Nazran in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Hundreds of people silently crowded around the coffin of Magomed Yevloyev. The 37-year-old lawyer and founder of a Web site ( www.ingushetiya.ru) that was critical of the government was killed in police custody. The authorities said that he was shot in a police car “inadvertently”...

Russia could find that it is getting more than it bargained for EVEN by Russia’s recent bloody standards, it was a brazen killing. Magomed Yevloyev, the editor of an opposition website in Russia’s north Caucasus territory of Ingushetia, was detained by the police as he arrived in Nazran on a flight from Moscow on August 31st. Within minutes he was dead, having allegedly tried to seize a policeman’s rifle and been shot in the head. His body was dumped outside the region’s main hospital. The Ingush authorities say they are investigating an accidental death but nobody takes this seriously. There...

The US military provided combat training to 80 Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia's army assault in South Ossetia in August. The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had "orchestrated" the war in the Georgian enclave. The training was provided by senior US soldiers and two military contractors. There is no evidence that the contractors or the Pentagon, which hired them, knew that the commandos they were training were likely be...

Away from the battlefields of Georgia, Russian politics this week has been framed by two shots, both fired on the same day, one supposedly by mistake, the other on purpose. The first shot, given blanket coverage by the Russian media, was fired by the country's macho prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Once a year, at about this time, a series of images are traditionally released showing Mr Putin at his swaggering, swashbuckling best. We've seen him at the helm of a fighter jet or tossing opponents to the floor on a judo mat. Last year Mr Putin became something of a...

MOSCOW -- For months, the owner of a muckraking news Web site had stayed away from his home after receiving warnings to tone down his critique of Kremlin-backed authorities in the Russian province of Ingushetia, friends said. But Magomed Yevloyev finally boarded a plane to return to Ingushetia this week, and there he encountered a surprise: The local governor was riding on the same plane, a few seats away from him in business class. When the plane landed in Ingushetia, the governor was met by a Mercedes that whisked him away. And Mr. Yevloyev was arrested at the airport, deposited...

Russia has been forced to increase its military presence in the North Caucasus amid growing fears that the Kremlin could face the type of separatist rebellion it has long supported in neighbouring Georgia

More than 1,000 angry mourners turned the funeral for a journalist critical of Russia's government into a demonstration Monday, accusing police of lying when they said he was accidentally shot by an officer. Magomed Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in Ingushetia province in Russia's volatile North Caucasus and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in his head.

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday announced Moscow’s intention to preserve geographical spheres “of privileged interest” on or near its borders as part of a five point foreign policy statement in a television interview. The announcement, in the wake of the recent conflict in Georgia, is likely to raise the political temperature in neighbouring states, especially those with significant Russian minorities, as they try to gauge Russia’s appetite for future conflicts in the region. He said that Russia would defend “the life and dignity” of Russian citizens “no matter where they are located”. He was referring to Russia’s intervention in...

A vocal critic of the Kremlin's policies in the Caucasus died Sunday from a bullet wound to the head while in police custody, Interfax reported, quoting prosecutors. Magomed Yevloyev founded and ran the website ingushetiya.ru, a major source of information in the region, and was a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin president of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov. Prosecutors have opened a preliminary manslaughter investigation after Yevloyev was shot in a police car in Narzan, the capital of volatile Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region that borders Chechnya, Russian media reported. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Vladimir Markin, said "an incident" took...

To be sure, the killing of tens of hundreds of people in the Caucasian region of South Ossetia in a sudden military onslaught by Georgia will turn out to be a landmark event in post-Soviet Russia’s relations with the West. Conceivably, a chapter in the post-Cold War era is ending. Blood has been drawn in the Caucasus, which history shows, is never easy to wipe away. Feuds are known to run for decades even if they bear verisimilitude to family squabbles. The crisis in southern Caucasus was slowly building up ever since Kosovo, the breakaway province of Serbia, declared independence...

The Kremlin’s Achilles’ Heel by Dumitru Minzarari 29 August 2008 Western powers must show more conviction if they want to keep Moldova and Ukraine from being the next Georgia. CHISINAU | As always in times of crisis, the West is striving to assemble its scattered voices into an organized chorus. That, however, is easier said than done because the West is divided into two camps in its dealings with Russia – especially the resurgent Russia of recent years. The first camp – mostly in “old Europe” – shows repentance over the perceived humiliation of Russia by the West, be it...

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - The owner of an opposition Internet news site in Russia's troubled Ingushetia region was shot dead on Sunday after being detained by police, prompting his colleagues to call for a protest rally. < > A lawyer for the site -- which survived repeated official attempts to close it down -- said police met Yevloyev at the steps of the aircraft after he flew in to Ingushetia's airport, put him in a Volga saloon car and drove him away. "As they drove he was shot in the temple ... They threw him out of the car near...

[Excerpt]....“So fast forward to early August. You have a town, Tskhinvali, which is Ossetian, and a bunch of Georgian villages surrounding it in a crescent shape. There are peacekeepers there. Both Russian peacekeepers and Georgian peacekeepers under a 1994 accord. The Ossetians were dug in in the town, and the Georgians were in the forests and the fields between the town and the villages. The Ossetians start provoking and provoking and provoking by shelling Georgian positions and Georgian villages around there. And it's a classic tit for tat thing. You shell, I shell back. The Georgians offered repeated ceasefires, which...

Chairman of the Central Muslim Board of Russia, Supreme Mufti, Sheikh ul-Islam Talgat Tajuddin addressed regional Muslim boards and believers appealing for them to render necessary help and support to the people of South Ossetia and all those who suffered from the humanitarian catastrophe in the territory of this republic. REGNUM correspondent reports referring to the Central Muslim Board's press office. The Supreme Mufti of Russia has also called on the whole Muslim world to recognize independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. ''Russian Muslims, like all our compatriots, support decision of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on recognition of independence...

One soldier was killed and 11 were wounded when two suicide bombers rammed a jeep packed with explosives through the fence of the Interior Ministry camp in Vedeno, south of the region's capital Grozny, a battalion spokesman was quoted as saying by RIA news agency. A Vedeno resident who saw the aftermath of the blast said both attackers were killed in the blast. The woman, who saw the severed head of one of them, said he appeared to be in his teens. The camp, where Interior Ministry troops had been quartered in tents, burned to the ground, she said. Another...

Spiegel: OSCE observers fault Georgians in conflict Europe News Aug 30, 2008, 9:52 GMT Hamburg - European observers have faulted Georgia in this month's Caucasus conflict, saying it made elaborate plans to seize South Ossetia, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. In a report to appear in its Monday edition, it said officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had said acts by the Georgian government had contributed to the outbreak of the crisis with Russia. Spiegel said OSCE military observers in the Caucasus had described preparations by Georgia to move into...

Strategic shortsightedness—defined as mistaking problems and issues of secondary or tertiary importance for those of vital importance, and being unable to foresee the predictable consequences of specific actions—is becoming a chronic malaise in Washington. So characteristic of U.S. policy in the Balkans in the 1990s and the more recent Iraq tragedy, it is now again apparent in U.S. actions with regard to Kosovo, and their spillover effects in the Caucasus. American policy makers had repeatedly told us that Kosovo was supposed to be a “unique” case, but apparently Vladimir Putin didn’t get the memo. The ghosts of our Balkan problems,...

Russia and South Ossetia will sign a military agreement next week allowing Russia to set up a military base in the breakaway region, Tarzan Kokoity, the acting vice-speaker of the South Ossetian parliament, said on August 29. He said that the agreement was expected to be signed on September 2, Interfax news agency reported. Interfax quoted an unnamed “military-diplomatic source” in Moscow as saying that Russia was planning to establish three military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In particular, he said, the plan envisaged bases in Gudauta and Ochamchire in Abkhazia. Georgia has long claimed that the Gudauta military...

People have gathered on Tbilisi 's streets to condemnt recognition of Georgia's separatists regions by Kremlin. "Now its time to speak about independence of Russia's separatist republics like Yakutia, Yamalia, Khanti Mansia, Komi, Chechnia, Ingushetia, Dagestan.." Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree recognizing Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, a day after the Russian parliament passed resolutions to this effect, ignoring protests from the West. The Russian Federation comprises 83 federal subjects. These subjects have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council.However, they differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy. STRATFOR U.S. based...