Russia now threatens Georgia with war, that is recognizing and actively supporting Abkhazia and South Ossetias attempt of breaking away from Georgia if Georgia enters NATO. The Russian solution for Moldova, is that Moldova gives up possible bid for NATO membership, withdraw from GUAM (an organization consisting of Georgia, Ukraina, Aserbajdian and Moldova), and instead gets hold of the autonomous republic Transdienestre (a republic which primarily supports it self by selling old Soviet arms and dirty bombs, now administered by former KGB personell), from Russia…or whoever claims it . So the Russian have managed to split the organization. To dicipline Ukraine the Russians use an other medicine: To cut the gas supply with 25%, or 50% or 35%..( use whatever percent it is the day you read this). The russians also have demanded that Georgian Airlines pay for "protection". The amount of 2 mill $ in alledged debth must be paid before they are allowed to operate in Russian airspace.
Angela Merkel, the German queen bee, opposes strongly (two days after her meeting with Putin) the idea that a country (Georgia) with internal conflicts enters NATO, and has spent a considerable amount of words describing how close the relationship with Russia is and will be, and that she wants to continue her close relationship with Putin also after the presidential election in Russia. Probably as a result of the critic she got from a large and important group of German businessmen, saying that she should stop criticizing the lack of human rights and democracy in Russia because it is an important market. Probably also combined with the need of Russian gas.
The Norwegians tremble in their pants in horror over the scenario of Russia taking control over the northern areas with its gas developing fields, fish resources in the Barents sea, and the unexplored gas and oil resources close to the North Pole which will be available when the ice melts due to global warming. To show how deep this concern is, the Norwegian Broadcasting was the ONLY news channel or newspaper that didn’t report that Russian fighters where rehearsing attacks from a carrier 500 meters away from our oil installations in the North Sea. In fact it was the top story that evening on all media. The civil air traffic had to stop due to this. To stop Norway’s Public Broadcasting (NRK) from reporting this incident was probably pulled off by the Foreign minister Gahr Støre or his brother in arms state secretary in UD Espen Barth Eide. Nobody would even think that the journalists in the NRK is that negligent. The day after the incident the NRK published a 15 seconds comment of the incident by Barth Eide, where he just called the incident for a minor misunderstanding. Two days later, Norway’s largest newspaper VG reported that the Russians earlier had demanded that Norway issued a statement where the government clearly stated that they DID NOT regard the Russians as a threat.
This also concerns Denmark because of their territorial interests in Greenland (fish), and USA because of their need for gas and oil from the same fields. The fact that this starts to get messy also for the EU is clearly stated in Javier Solanas last report about the battle for the resources due to climate changes. The Russians has already planted the Russian flag on the bottom of the North Pole.
In France everything is tres bon. The local Bonaparte is happily married to his model wife, and his main concern is to get the French Kitchen on the World Heritage list. Still he manages to expresses doubt about having Georgia as a NATO member contrary to what he said last year. At the moment he is courting Lavrov, by the way.
The conclusion? Feel free to add one. I suggest: Russia is using all means at hand to expand their territory. Everybody is afraid of Russia, and hope that sucking up to Putin and Medvedev will postpone the problem.
Sources:
Ekho Moskvy, Gazeta.ru, VG, NRK, TV2, Georgia Online, UPI, Moscow Times.
* Update 14.03.2008
Just to confirm my anticiptations Norway today announced that they also opposed Georgias bid for NATO membership. This is in line with the very careful approach they had to recognizing Kosovo. Almost just a whisper "We must see what the others do, and then..if hopfully Putin and Medvedev don't notice..we recognise it" . But behold! There is some hanky panky going on! Norway also announced today that they are moving their military headquarters for the AirForce from Jåtta in the south of Norway to Bodø... which lies exactly where? Ofcourse up north :-) The cost? 100 mill. $.
