Free Republic

With the Soviet lid still firmly on, if there were resentments, they simmered beneath the surface. It was a long way off yet from the burning knotted frustrations which ignited this latest violent conflagration. But this is not a eulogy for Soviet times and its duplicitous Cold War slogan, that hailed "Friendship of Nations." Soviet legacy Far from it. Because it is in part the legacy of the Soviet Union - that network of autonomous regions and republics still peppering the landscape, which engendered the so-called frozen conflicts. Like so many Soviet concepts, the idea of autonomous regions, inside the...

TBILISI, Georgia -- Russia's foreign minister is disputing Georgia's claim that its troops have pulled out of South Ossetia, the separatist region where fighting with Russian forces has killed hundreds this weekend. Earlier Sunday, Georgia said its troops were withdrawing and President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was calling a cease-fire. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov disputed that in a telephone call with his Georgian counterpart Eka Tkeshelashvili, a ministry statement said. In the call, "the Russian side brought in facts about the presence of Georgian forces in certain neighborhoods of Tskhinvali," the South Ossetian capital where fighting has been...