MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Sunday laid out what he said would become his government’s guiding principles of foreign policy after its landmark conflict with Georgia — notably including a claim to a “privileged” sphere of influence in the world.

Speaking to Russian television in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, a day before a summit meeting in Brussels where European leaders were to reassess their relations with Russia, Mr. Medvedev said his government would adhere to five principles.

Russia, he said, would observe international law. It would reject what he called United States dominance of world affairs in a “unipolar” world. It would seek friendly relations with other nations. It would defend Russian citizens and business interests abroad. And it would claim a sphere of influence in the world.

In part, Mr. Medvedev reiterated long-held Russian positions, like his country’s rejection of American aspirations to an exceptional role in world affairs after the end of the cold war. The Russian authorities have also said previously that their foreign policy would include a defense of commercial interests, sometimes citing American practice as justification.

In his unabashed claim to a renewed Russian sphere of influence, Mr. Medvedev said: “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions where it has privileged interests. These are regions where countries with which we have friendly relations are located.”

Asked whether this sphere of influence would be the border states around Russia, he answered, “It is the border region, but not only.”

Last week, Mr. Medvedev used vehement language in announcing Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Though he alluded in passing to respecting Georgia’s territorial integrity, he defended Russia’s intervention as necessary to prevent a genocide.

Headlines from the Moscow Times:

Kremlin Makes Its Case With Tskhinvali Tour
By Anna Smolchenko / Staff Writer

Under the standards of information warfare, it was an easy job by all accounts.

EU Links Talks to Georgia Pullout
By Nabi Abdullaev / Staff Writer

The European Union said Monday that it would postpone talks on a partnership agreement with Moscow until Russia withdrew its troops from Georgia.

Prokhorov Tells Students How to Get Rich
By Nadia Popova / Staff Writer

Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov on Monday advised students at the government's Financial Academy that going into private business, rather than working for the state, was the best way to get rich and join him on the Forbes list.

Putin Touts Economic Ties With Asia
By Anatoly Medetsky / Staff Writer

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled to Vladivostok, in the country’s Far East, on Monday to tout Russia’s ties with Asia as a counterpoint to its diplomatic dispute with the West over Georgia.

Putin used the visit to urge ahead preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to be held in Vladivostok in 2012, appointing First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov to oversee the stalled work, and to highlight plans to begin shipping oil to Asia next year.

“We are ready, and will offer our foreign colleagues a positive agenda dedicated to developing an economic partnership,” Putin said in comments published on the Cabinet’s web site. Russia wants to use the event as a springboard for its business ties in the rapidly developing region, he said.

But construction of the facilities and infrastructure for the event — including two large bridges — has not begun, leading experts to question whether Russia will be able to host the summit.

Putin said he had been told that work on the bridges “is supposedly already under way,” but that he had not seen it himself. Putin also met with Primorye Governor Sergei Darkin to discuss the preparations, which have been cited as an opportunity to develop the Far East.

“It’s important, of course, to hold a major international event, but it’s far more important that we use this event as a reason to turn our attention once again to developing the Far East,” he said.

The trip came just ahead of an emergency summit of the European Union in Brussels, which has been divided on how to respond to the Georgian crisis, and just after calls to kick Russia from the Group of Eight.

Russia is planning to begin supplying Asia with its oil in 2009, a step that would reduce its dependence on Western markets. On Sunday, Putin made a point of visiting the construction site for a sea terminal near Vladivostok that will handle the oil.

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Gus: the bear has bolted... Not waiting for the West to huff and puff.

September 4, 2008
U.S. Unveils $1 Billion Georgia Aid Package
By STEVEN LEE MYERS [NYT]

BAKU, Azerbaijan — President Bush proposed $1 billion in humanitarian and economic assistance on Wednesday to help rebuild Georgia after its short, disastrous war with Russia last month, but he stopped short of committing the United States to reequipping the country’s battered military.

Mr. Bush announced the infusion of aid as Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in the region, in what the president described as a demonstration that the United States had “a deep and abiding interest” in keeping Georgia and other neighboring states free from a new era of Russian domination.

The proposed aid, along with Mr. Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad,” is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by providing Georgia with weapons and training for its armed forces, while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance.

“Georgia has a strong economic foundation and leaders with an impressive record of reform,” President Bush said on Wednesday. “Our additional economic assistance will help the people of Georgia recover from the assault on their country, and continue to build a prosperous and competitive economy.” The new package of aid, which requires approval by Congress, would significantly deepen United States assistance to a country that has been ardently pro-American, though at the cost of the worst friction between the United States and Russia since the end of the cold war.

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Meanwhile:

Saakashvili a 'political corpse'
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
President Medvedev said Russia did not fear calls for its isolation

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described his Georgian counterpart as a "political corpse", saying Moscow does not recognise him as president.

"President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," he told Italy's Rai television.

He said US support for Mr Saakashvili had helped provoke the crisis, which has seen Russian troops invade Georgia.

He said Russia did not fear isolation by Western countries that have condemned the Russian intervention. 

American intelligence confirms that the latest military actions in South Ossetia were started by Georgia and Russia’s position in the conflict was correct, says Republican California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.  

He said the situation reminded him of the Bay of Tonkin incident, which the U.S. used as a pretext for beginning the war in Vietnam.  

"The Russians are right! We're wrong! Georgia started it, the Russians ended it," Rohrabacher said at a hearing in the House of Representatives. 

US Intelligence Sees It Russia’s Way

The BBC has discovered evidence that Georgia may have committed war crimes in its attack on its breakaway region of South Ossetia in August.

Eyewitnesses have described how its tanks fired directly into an apartment block, and how civilians were shot at as they tried to escape the fighting.

Research by the international investigative organisation Human Rights Watch also points to indiscriminate use of force by the Georgian military, and the possible deliberate targeting of civilians.

Indiscriminate use of force is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and serious violations are considered to be war crimes.

The allegations are now raising concerns among Georgia's supporters in the West.

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Gus: concerns? Why not call it "collateral damage" or say there was a "terrorist" near by... and all's forgiven. When you're a friend of the USA, do as the USA do all the time... Get away with it... Doobeedoobeedoo...

President Mikhail Saakashvili has denied that Georgia's armed forces committed war crimes during their attack on South Ossetia in August.

Evidence obtained by the BBC in the breakaway region suggests Georgia used indiscriminate force, and may have targeted civilians.

Witnesses said tanks had fired on an apartment block, and civilians were shot at as they fled the fighting.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has raised the issue with Tbilisi.

South Ossetia and another region, Abkhazia, broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

see blog above...

Georgia's attempt to re-conquer South Ossetia triggered a Russian invasion and the most serious crisis in relations between the Kremlin and the West since the Cold War.

Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

Senior Georgian officials contest these accounts, and have urged Western governments to discount them. “That information, I don’t know what it is and how it is confirmed,” said Giga Bokeria, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister. “There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn’t change in any case the general picture of events.”

He added: “Who was counting those explosions? It sounds a bit peculiar.”

The Kremlin has embraced the monitors’ observations, which, according to a written statement from Grigory Karasin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, reflect “the actual course of events prior to Georgia’s aggression.” He added that the accounts “refute” allegations by Tbilisi of bombardments that he called mythical.

The monitors were members of an international team working under the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or O.S.C.E. A multilateral organization with 56 member states, the group has monitored the conflict since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s.

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Gus: Was President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia coerced by the US administration, a bit like when Saddam made clear his intention to "re-attach" Kuwait to Iraq in 1990-91, Saddam was convinced the US was giving him the green light to invade?... see toon at top...

Russia accused the US last night of "orchestrating" Europe's gas crisis as gas deliveries to the EU were halted hours after they resumed, amid venomous exchanges of accusations between Moscow and Kiev.

Gazprom, Russia's gas company, said its pumping stations began sending gas through Ukraine early yesterday, following a monitoring deal signed in Brussels on Monday. But hours later, Gazprom said Ukraine was blocking the flow of gas - adding that the US was to blame.

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Gus: would not be surprised...

Russia accused the US last night of "orchestrating" Europe's gas crisis as gas deliveries to the EU were halted hours after they resumed, amid venomous exchanges of accusations between Moscow and Kiev.

Gazprom, Russia's gas company, said its pumping stations began sending gas through Ukraine early yesterday, following a monitoring deal signed in Brussels on Monday. But hours later, Gazprom said Ukraine was blocking the flow of gas - adding that the US was to blame.

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Gus: would not be surprised... The US are prepared to do anything to make the Russians look bad and create bother between the EU and Russia... It could backfire mind you if the real deal is split opened...

Nearly a century ago, Britain was accused of masterminding a failed plot to kill Lenin and overthrow his fledgling Bolshevik regime. The British government dismissed the story as mere Soviet propaganda - but new evidence suggests it might be true.

For decades what became known as the "Lockhart plot" has been etched in the annals of the Soviet archives, taught in schools and even illustrated in films.

In early 1918, in the final months of World War I, Russia's new Bolshevik government was negotiating a peace deal with Germany and withdrawing its exhausted troops from the front.

This did not please London. The move would enable Berlin - which had been fighting a war on two fronts - to reinforce its forces in the West.

Determined to get the Russians back into the war on the Allied side, the British despatched a young man in his 30s to be London's representative in Moscow.

His name was Robert Bruce Lockhart.

read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12785695

see toon at top...

Russia reached an agreement with Georgia on a bilateral deal late Wednesday night that paves the way for its much-anticipated entry into the World Trade Organization, Reuters reported.

"We are happy that Georgia supported the draft agreement and that finally an agreement has been reached," said Maxim Medvedkov, Russia's top negotiator in accession talks, Reuters reported.

Russian entry, which now looks all but certain to take place by the end of the year, would come after 18 years of negotiations and represent the biggest step in world trade liberalization since China joined a decade ago. Russia, the largest economy outside the WTO, has an economic output of $1.9 trillion, or about 2.8 percent of the world economy.