You gotta source for this?
Following this logic, it might be an even trade if we chose to occupy Serbia.
I think Putin's little Caucus soiree may be beneficial to us in the medium-to-long term. It has hardened the ex-communist countries resolve against Russia and may even result in Western Europe finally turning away from Russia as a petroleum supplier since Putin seems determined to use it as a weapon.
End result will be a more isolated Russia.
The end result here is going to be a new Soviet Russia! Putin is and always will be KGB - determined that his "country" was almost destroyed by democracy. It his goal (among becoming one of he super rich of this world) to reunite the "breakaway republics" so they are again ruled from Moscow. The biggest factor is oil and gas. Russia has them, the rest of the world needs them and will do anything and suffer any indignity to keep them available. No head of any state can exist if Russia shuts off the oil/gas to that country. The ruling politicians would be out of a job and that would not be allowed to happened. Most of the ruling politcos are in place only because they pandered sufficiently to get "elected". Most of the population of these "former Soviet Union" countries have no sense of any nationalistic unity. They have been truly raised as sheep. If they get cold or their cars have no fuel, they will bow to Putin and his oil, regardless of the price they are required to pay - including joining the "new" Russia!
The Cold War is renewing itself NOW! Is Obama ready for it?
Putin met Bush personally earlier in the year and offered to turn a blind eye to Kosovo if Bush would back off from expanding NATO into the Ukraine and Georgia. Bush declined the offer. (Source - Straffor). Now any future negotiations will assume a very different hue, with Russia clearly willing to go to war over the Caucasus and probably the Balkans too if necessary, and the Americans and the Europeans equally clearly unwilling. Putin has now made Bush and the EU look weak, and can drive a far harder bargain.
From Startfor
http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2008/08/bush-to-back-down-on-kosovo.html
"Strategically, the Russians have been sending signals that they really wanted to flex their muscles, and they're upset about Kosovo," the diplomat said. He was alluding to Russia's anger at the West for recognizing Kosovo's independence from Serbia earlier this year.
Indeed, the decision by the United States and Europe to recognize Kosovo may well have paved the way for Russia's lightning-fast decision to send troops to back the separatists in South Ossetia. During one meeting on Kosovo in Brussels this year, Lavrov, the foreign minister, warned Rice and European diplomats that if they recognized Kosovo, they would be setting a precedent for South Ossetia and other breakaway provinces. As easily as the West could encourage a former Russian satellite toward independence and away from Russia's sphere of influence, the Russians warned, so too, could Moscow encourage pro-Russian breakaway regions like South Ossetia to follow suit.
For the Bush administration, the choice now becomes whether backing Georgia — which, more than any other former Soviet republic has allied with the United States — on the South Ossetia issue is worth alienating Russia at a time when getting Russia's help to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions is at the top of the United States' foreign policy agenda. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/09/europe/10diplo.php
Here's Russia - straight from the horse's mouth:
Russia's officials cannot [simultaneously] accept the independence of Ossetia and Abkhazia and speak on the status of Kosovo, since they are perfectly aware that this will work against them.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080808/115909470.html