Putin initiates ethnic cleansing?

For us, not understanding how Russia can hold an UN-mandatory of peacekeeping in breakaway republic Abkhazia, the feeling of absurdity is growing. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin has started to deport Georgians living in Russia in a large scale operation.

[..]The Georgians were rounded up in police raids and accused of immigration offences, according to media reports. Meanwhile, in Moscow police have reportedly asked schools to draw up lists of pupils with Georgian surnames. A Russian opposition leader has accused the government of mounting a campaign of discrimination against immigrants. In a statement, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, an erstwhile key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the anti-Georgian measures amounted to indecent chauvinistic hysteria, Moscow Radio reported. "Russia does not want to be provoked, Russia wants to be respected. Russia wants the anti-Russian campaign to stop", the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said[..] (BBC NEWS, 06.10.2006).

So it's a question of respect? It is also a question about dealing with domestic problems in their own backyard. Then it might help to introduce Georgia as a common enemy of the state. Putin has increased his popularity during the conflict with Georgia, the latest polls show. But Russia also suffers from a democratic problem which the former KGB leader Putin has introduced through his power-pyramid. On a direct question live on BBC in the spring 2006 he answered to the allegations of him controlling the press that it was “better that the state controlled the media than a few rich media moguls or oligarks”. Russian journalists also reports of an “invisible hand” (not Adam Smiths) controlling the media, enforcing increased self-censorship on the journalists. That is imperative when you want to introduce a common enemy of the state. Diverting views should not be presented.

(Picture curtesy of Russian Embassy)