Abkhazia

Greece's policies towards Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Abhazia, and

As long as a field of dynamic or latent conflict persists among Russia and certain states from the Caucasus, as long as some places become a sanctuary for interethnic and economic tensions (Checheny, Abhazia, South Ossetia Nagorno-Karabach), Moscow continues to be regarded as a generator of aggressive conduct in its relations with these countries, some of them wishing to be effectively independent, others seeking a normal road towards democratization.

(192) See Anne Applebaum, What's Going on in Abhazia, May 5, 2008, www.slate.com/id/2190651/ (Before last weekend, when the Russian press agency ITARTASS declared that the government of Georgia was about to invade Abkhazia, nobody had really thought about Abkhazia at all.

All parts of Georgia (except the prounion authoritarian territories of Abhazia and South Ossetia) boycotted the 1991 union referendum, instead holding their own plebiscites on independence.

Two examples should suffice to illustrate this situation: the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the area of Nagorno-Karabagh (where Russia unmistakably took Armenia's side), and the revolt of Abhazia against the Georgian government of President Edvard Shevardnadze (who barely escaped an attempt at assassination).