Russia, Droning On

Vladimir Putin loves playing hardball. His competitive spirit fuels a resurgent Russia, as of old. Adamant that he will no longer relinquish the playing field to aspirants wishing to control their own destiny, he's still high on his success in (temporarily) denying Georgia entrance to NATO. And busy making mischief, doing to that country what he will not permit to be done to his own; the encouragement of break-away portions, destroying the unity of the country.

Actively encouraging the separation of two restive areas of Georgia, Abkhazia - internationally recognized as part of Georgia, but activated by separatists supported by Moscow - and South Ossetia. Craftily establishing ties with the separatists in both these would-be breakaway regions. Pay-back for Georgia's insistence that as a sovereign country it has the right to do as it will, including becoming part of the 26-nation alliance of NATO.

Were another country to intervene in the encouragement of Uzbekistan, with whom Russia fights a continual bitter battle, as it does with Ukraine, and as it does still with Latvia, the full wrath of Vladimir Putin is released as he unhinges from his role as steady, steely leader of Russia and morphs into Vlad the Totalitarian.

When Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili conveyed his ire to President Putin over a Russian MiG-29 fighter entering Georgian airspace to shoot down an unmanned surveillance drone over Abkhazia, denial was the order of the day. Yet video footage clearly displayed the incident, identifying the strike.

"Nonsense" was the response from Russia's air force. And Vladimir Putin, never one to be put in his place, or to be placed on the defensive, shot off a little verbal ballistic missile of his own through the Kremlin press service, coyly relating his conversation with Mr. Saskashvili, that he purported to be "bewildered" that Georgia sent drones over Abkhazia.

Leaving no doubt that he held Abkhazia to be unrelated to Georgia, no longer part of its sovereign territory - under the protection of Russia - and that Georgia had no business sending anything over airspace not her own. The region has especial value to Russia as a transit route for oil from the Caspian Sea. Everything - world-wide - reduces to energy, oil.

Russia has issued its own passports to residents of Abkhazia, a breathtaking display of sheer arrogance. Tbilisi has, with understatement, given the circumstances, accused Moscow of annexation of the region. Everything depends upon whose ox is being gored, doesn't it? Russia's stout defence of Serbia with the declaration of independence of Kosovo comes to mind.

Yet Russia, which bitterly denounced the EU and the U.S. for recognizing the legitimacy of Kosovar independence as a nation in its own right, despite Serbia's (legal) assertion of sovereignty, is now set to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. It's fairly obvious that NATO's placatory gesture to Russia with respect to delaying Georgia's and Ukraine's membership has emboldened President Putin.

But there is Abkhazia's administrators, in defence of Russia's innocence, claiming that its own forces had shot down the drone, since it was violating Abkhaz air space.