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
“Putin met Bush personally earlier in the year and offered..”
The offer is invalid. Hitler personally promised no more territorial demands if the allies gave up Czechoslovakia.
“if Bush would back off from expanding NATO into the Ukraine and Georgia.”
The reason Russia doesn’t want the Ukraine and Georgia in NATO is because of Russia’s territorial ambitions. Putin is an autocratic thug who wants to install kleptocratic puppet governments in democratic states.