September 5:
In an apparent reference to Russia, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in Kiev, has urged Ukraine’s deeply divided leaders to unite against threats, Agence France-Presse reports. “We believe in the right of men and women to live without the threat of tyranny, economic blackmail or military invasion or intimidation,” Cheney said after meeting President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. “Ukraine’s best hope to overcome these threats is to be united - united domestically first and foremost and united with other democracies.”
According to AFP, Cheney also criticized Russia directly. “I arrived here last night from Georgia, a young democracy that in the last month has been subjected to a Russian invasion and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt by force of arms to dismember its territory,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ogryzko told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Russia’s consulate on the Crimean peninsula has been giving out Russian passports to the population there.
AFP reports Moscow is questioning why Washington had chosen one of its most sophisticated warships, the USS Mount Whitney, to transport aid to Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti. “Naval ships of that class can hardly deliver a large amount of aid,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told journalists, underlining instead the ship’s sophisticated surveillance technology.
September 6:
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in Italy, has kept up his criticism of Russia, the Financial Times reports. He rejected Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s comment that the Soviet Union’s demise was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” calling it “inevitable and the greatest forward step for liberty in the last 60 years.” Cheney said Russia’s leaders “cannot have it both ways” by enjoying the benefits of commerce and prestige while engaging in brute force, and cited Russia’s “intimidation” of Ukraine and the Baltic states, and a threat to attack Poland for agreeing to accept U.S. missile defense systems. He also accused Russia of selling advanced weapons to Syria and Iran, and said arms sold to Damascus have been channeled to Lebanon and Iraq.
September 7:
The Sunday Times reports that Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran’s nuclear program in response to U.S. calls for NATO expansion eastwards and the presence of U.S. Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia. The British newspaper quotes sources close to the Russian military as saying that the Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training.
September 8:
Prosecutors in Moscow want to ban the satirical U.S. cartoon South Park, Reuters reports. Basmanny regional prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Valentina Titova said investigators filed a motion after deciding an episode broadcast on Moscow television station 2x2 in January “bore signs of extremist activity.”
September 9:
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has told President Dmitry Medvedev that about 3,800 Russian troops will be based each in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, NEWSru.com reports. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier that Russian troops will remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in order to prevent “relapses of aggressive actions” by Georgia.
The International Herald Tribune reports that the Bush administration, after considerable internal debate, has decided not to take direct punitive action against Russia for its conflict with Georgia. The newspaper quotes senior administration officials as saying the White House concluded that economic sanctions or blocking Russia from world trade groups would only deepen Russia’s intransigence and allow the Kremlin to narrow the regional and global implications of its invasion of Georgia to an old-fashioned Washington-Moscow dispute.
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