Torygraph:
Russia threatens new confrontation over Georgian provinces A fresh confrontation between Moscow and the West was looming after Russia announced that it was preparing to recognise the independence of the two Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The State Duma, Russia's parliament, has been recalled and will meet in emergency session on Monday to debate an Abkhaz appeal for immediate recognition of the region's sovereignty. The South Ossetian rebel leader, Eduard Kokoity, said he would follow suit imminently. Russian acquiescence to the proposals would inevitably mark a serious escalation of the crisis in the Caucasus by further undermining a fragile ceasefire in the area and creating a fresh diplomatic rift with the United States and Europe.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has signed 14 United Nations Security Council resolutions accepting that Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain part of Georgia despite establishing rebel administrations after secessionist wars in the early 1990s. But after crushing Georgia on the battlefield, Russia has indicated that it was no longer prepared to honour UN edicts on the breakaway provinces. Earlier this week, Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the world to "forget" about Georgia's territorial integrity.
Moscow is now signaling that it will move much quicker than expected in formally recognizing the two regions. Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Duma's upper house or Federation Council, said a vote on recognition would be overwhelmingly passed. "The Federation Council is ready to recognize the independent states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia if that is what the people of these republics want," he said.
There can be little doubt that the legislators who sit in the Duma, whose independence from the executive was removed by the prime minister Vladimir Putin, will vote as they are ordered. Recognition can only be made with the agreement of President Dmitry Medvedev. He has already said that he would "unambiguously" support independence for the two provinces.
Such a move would place tremendous strain on the fragile French brokered truce that ended the five-day war last week. Georgia has insisted that it would not tolerate losing either province, while the international community has repeatedly insisted that the country's borders would not be changed.
Russia, which has long given financial and military backing to both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, has accused the West of hypocrisy in supporting independence for Kosovo but opposing sovereignty for the two regions.
The West has argued that Kosovo was a special case, in large part because of its overwhelmingly Albanian majority. The Abkhaz have only become a majority in Abkhazia after 300,000 ethnic Georgians were forced to flee their homes during a brutal war in the early 1990s. Ossetians are a majority in South Ossetia, but the tiny province - roughly the size of Norfolk - has many ethnic Georgian villages too.
The development came as the focus of diplomatic pressure on Russia switched from the United States to Europe, with Britain, France and Germany all condemning Moscow for reneging on pledges to withdraw its troops from Georgia. While 40 empty army lorries were seen heading back across the Georgian border, there was no sign of a large-scale withdrawal and in many parts of the country Russian troops continued to dig themselves in.
Fed up with Russia's recalcitrance, David Miliband has warned the Kremlin that it faced serious consequences for its invasion of Georgia even if it does finally honour repeated pledges to its withdraw troops.
"Withdrawal is the first step but that doesn't mean that we forget about what has happened," the Foreign Secretary said in Tbilisi. "The sight of Russian tanks in a European city has been a chilling one." France accused Russia of breaking its word on a pullout three times, while Germany described Moscow's apparent prevarication as "very unsatisfactory".
Mr Miliband also condemned Russia's attacks on Georgia's civilian infrastructure, accusing Moscow of seeking to command international respect in a "very Cold War way".