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EASTWEEK
Weekly analytical newsletter on Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasus and Central Asia (also available in Polish as Tydzień na Wschodzie)

Contents

No. 28(178) | 2009-08-31
Also available in PDF

Analyses

  • Russia's historical campaign

    A series of articles about the policies of the Soviet Union and certain European countries towards Hitler's Germany have appeared in the Russian electronic and paper media since June, and especially in late August in connection with the approaching seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. In these articles, Russian historians, political scientists and journalists, as well as high-ranking state officials and representatives of the secret services and the armed forces, presented arguments which largely repeated the clichés of Soviet historiography. They justified and positively assessed the USSR's policy in the late 1930s, and accused Poland, the Baltic States, Great Britain and Ukrainian nationalists of having supported Nazi Germany.

  • Tension escalates in the Northern Caucasus

    Violence has escalated in recent weeks in the eastern part of the Northern Caucasus, i.e. the region comprising Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. On 17 August in Nazran, Ingushetia, an attack against the local Interior Ministry headquarters took place, in which 25 people were killed and nearly 300 injured. In the second half of August, eight police officers were killed in three suicide attacks in the Chechen capital Grozny. In Dagestan, attacks against representatives of the institutions of force occur almost daily. Radical underground Islamic organisations are responsible for the current escalation of violence; however, the activities of the Russian institutions of force may also be responsible, as they have been seeking to destabilise the situation in the region in order to obtain additional powers in the fight against terrorism.

Events

 

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Georgia stops vessels sailing between Turkey and Abkhazia
EASTWEEK

2009-08-31

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On 20 August, the Georgian coast guard detained a vessel flying the Cambodian flag on its course from the separatist region of Abkhazia to Turkey. This was the latest in a series of similar incidents in recent weeks. The Abkhazian authorities have accused the Georgian government of 'piracy', and called on the UN and other organisations for assistance. Even though the measures Tbilisi has undertaken are justified from the legal point of view, the question of sea passage to and from Abkhazia may trigger a new escalation of tension between Georgia and Russia.

The Cambodian ship Afro Star was seized in Georgian territorial waters on charges of contraband. A similar incident occurred on 17 August, when a Panamanian tanker carrying fuel from Turkey to Abkhazia was seized; on that occasion the ship with its cargo were confiscated, and the Turkish-Azeri crew was detained. The Abkhazian authorities asked the UN Security Council, the EU and the French president for assistance, and threatened to respond with similar measures, by seizing vessels headed to Georgian ports.
Under international law, the coastal waters of Abkhazia are an integral part of Georgia (as is the land territory of Abkhazia), and therefore the Georgian coast guard has the right to operate in the way it did. However, there is a serious risk that Moscow may decide to take measures to ensure free sea passage to and from Abkhazia, whose independence Russia has recognised and with which it has been intensively developing co-operation, including in the military sphere. In this situation, incidents of this kind may likely lead to a serious escalation of tension between Russia and Georgia, or even a limited use of force by the Russian side. <bart>

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