Russia Takes Key Step Toward Annexing a Slice of Georgia

(thetrumpet) - Russian President Vladimir Putin further tightened his grip on Georgia’s breakaway province of Abkhazia on November 24: He signed a new treaty that places Abkhazian and Russian military forces under joint control.

On paper, “joint control” means Abkhazia has as much control over Russian forces as Moscow has over Abkhazia’s. In reality, however, Abkhazia’s influence over Russia will be approximately as robust as Mercury’s gravitational influence on the sun.

The treaty comes as tensions rise sharply between Russia and Ukraine, which, like Georgia, was part of the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. Most people in Georgia believe Russia’s moves in Abkhazia parallel its moves in Ukraine.

“Putin’s treaty with Abkhazia is very similar to Crimea’s scenario,” Dr. Irakli Bokuchava, a resident of Tbilisi, Georgia, told the Trumpet. Putin’s clear plan, according to Bokuchava, is the “creation of a renewed USSR.”

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said that in signing the new treaty, Russia took a “step toward the de facto annexation” of Abkhazia.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgian authority in a 1992-1993 war. In 2008, after Russia’s five-day war with Georgia, Moscow recognized Abkhazia—and Georgia’s other breakaway region of South Ossetia—as independent. Moscow then asserted Russian control over the two regions. Only a handful of other nations have recognized the two regions’ declarations of independence, and Georgia insists that they remain part of Georgia. Read the rest