Ok, guys...
Medvedev signed a resolusion of admitting of independence of both republics...
In my ofice everybody is getting ready to global isolation))
If You'll not see me here anymore - just know, Russia is cut off Internet)

Maybe they are smart, and do not want independence.

Global isolation? Strength does not lead to isolation. China can crush its minorities and see how isolated it is.

Russia protects minorities and is big enough to stand on its own. Do you suppose that Italians won't buy your gas any more?

South Ossetia and Abhazia don't want independence?? You're kidding?

Tha gass is not everything in this life..
Our markets get down at 30% since the war had started till know.. Soon we'll have such a wilde inflation that we'll have lack of bread.
Then Western community do their best to negotiate with Turkmenia, Iran, Azerbadjan an others in order to deverse their gass flows, and then... what will be then?
You can't fight with the whole world!

I mean, they want to remain in Russia. Why should they have to cross a border to go visit grandma?

There is no Western Community, they have the solidarity of merchants, or rather of pirates, which does not last long.

Your markets are down because you worry too much. Why should you have inflation, unless you print money?
What do you need to buy from the West? Italian shoes and French wine? They are more thirsty for your oil, than you should be for their wine. Abkhazian wine I bet is as good.

Matt: "I mean, they want to remain in Russia. Why should they have to cross a border to go visit grandma?"
This is perfect world. That's what I mention many many times. This is the cause worth to fight for. But is Russia ready to do the same thing for Chechenia? I guest not. There is no perfect solution but if you fight for "close to perfect" it is worth the try.

We read about them in Tolstoy. We sympathize with a nation that suffered so much under Stalin and again under Yeltsin and Putin. The problem is that there was Western and Islamist financing of Islamist insurrection. Until then, Soviet nations were living in peace with each other. They were all at the point of entering a peaceful democratic era, when malevolent Western influence threw them against each other in murderous warfare.

Islamists financed by the West. Would it be rational to give their movement a base, even if they are right?

In similar circumstances, we could have sympathized with the Soviet Union nations that were so badly treated by Stalin.

We could have recognized that they had good reasons for going over to the Nazi side in WW2.

Morally they may have been right.

Unfortunately they had gone over to the Nazis, and so we could not support them.

Anyway, the Chechens are today ruled by a former rebel and have a degree of autonomy such that most stateless nations like Kurds, Assyrians, or Karens would envy.

About Chechens:
Yes, Matt is right. They are rather independent inside of the Russian borders. But they are a part of a country and this fact is beeing very attantively monitored and kept.

Milan. I wonder, what do you mean saying "Is Russia ready to do the same for Chechens"?

About western community:
No, Matt, there is. No matter, it is a community of merchants or pirates.. It is a community. And it is a basic one in the world..

I completely disagree with what you're saying about economy. We depend on western economies not less then they on ours.
But the key point is policical:
Yet we had only one unadecuate wilde player in global community. Now we have two.
Two big countries that do not care about any kind of international agreements and norms.
And if before EU in a way took Russia as a kind of alternative to wilde stupid America, now they have the second one to the east. Choosing with whom to deal is among Wilde stupids, but at least people of closer culter and european values, and horrible Russian bear, Empire of Evil....?

Since yestarday the world has changed. It had started to change after Kosovo taking away and finally has changed know... Awaite worse!

I want to learn. What does Russia need from the West?

Look at Cuba, surrounded by a hostile block, shut out from its markets, prevented from buying spare parts for its machinery, attacked by terrorists sent or sheltered by Washington.

Look at the USSR, in a worse situation than Cuba--no sea to protect it.

They made it. THe USSR of course was finally conquered by the greed of its leaders. But how can the West hurt Russia? By refusing to buy its oil and gas? Fat chance.

Now is not that times.
Our economies are heavily integrated. We need them as a consumption market for some key products of our production.
Our big growing companies greatly need huge investments, which are in variaty in the west, who actually, which the situation is not spoiled by political situation, is willing to invest in our high-temp-growth economy.
The untegration to global economy gives us opportunity to develope non-fuel sectors of economy. During last 3 years Ford, Tayota, Peugeot,Uniliver, has built factories in our country, Coca-cola, PandG, Effes - has build their 3-rds or 5-th. And this gives push to other small-business sectors: spare parts companies, parer-production factories, chemical goods companies etc ( I gave you just a small example, in fact invansion of foreign companies to Russia is huge).
So, you don't doubt. We need the world! As well as everyone.

Free enterprise is good when it allows small local companies to start and compete.

It's deadly when it gives a free ride to the same criminal corporations that have obtained the control of minds and elections in the West.

It's a catastrophe for Russia to allow Western corporate thugs to come to control their economies with their consumer goods, totally unnecessary in a rational economy.

It's lunacy to allow Coke to brainwash Russian children into getting hooked on sugared water that makes them fat and ugly and rots their teeth. Advertising to children creates lifelong customers.

There is no reason to allow Ford to clog Russian roads with the private cars that have wrecked American and Asian cities.

There is no reason to allow Unilever to sell their worthless soap and noxious margarine in Russia.

There is no need for foreign investment in Russia. It's absurd. RUssia has factories and engineers and machine tools, it's not the Congo.

Hey, what kind of world do you fight for?))

Have you ever heard about Global Diferentiation of Labour? ( Adam Smith)

Or do you oppose his ideas?

A civilized world, where city people use free public transport and free city bicycles--as in Paris today.

Where corporate thugs are not allowed to brainwash tots and teeenagers with their poisonous suggestions to buy shoes, vodka, tobacco, and paint for their faces. Where they are not allowed to teach kids that they are not cool without the right shoes, for which American kids murder each other.

Where national leaders are not chosen by advertising agencies and wars are not started or continued for electoral reasons.

Where foreign companies are not allowed to convince the weak-minded that to be cool they must have imported shoes and cars.

Where the state allows local and foreign companies to compete with its own worker-managed companies.

Where consumption is taxed, not income.

It's a pity you had never lived in USSR. You'd love it)))

So, all that is normal consequences of market economy. The only thing people ( state) can do is just control all these processes..
However, maybe you also do not like the concept of market economy?

Would not have liked living in the USSR too much. Little personal freedom, no political freedom, no freedom of enterprise, no right to keep weapons, too much respect for authority in general, fear of getting in trouble, wasting time on line.

On the other hand, no ethnic war, no export of slave girls to the West, no need for people to emigrate to find work, no homelessness, no drug addiction, low crime levels, free education and culture. Boring, but certainly better for most people.

As for your free market, it's a bloody fraud. As fake as free elections in the West.

Between Bush and Brezhnev, I choose Nonovtheabov.

WHo is he? Have never heard...

Nice Russian-sounding name, but it's "None of the above."

That's what Americans say, those who are dissatisfied with the choices offered by our electoral system.