August Russian invasion of Georgia threat to CIS

Murat Laumulin, from the Kazakh Strategic Research Institute, has stated that the 2008 August war changed a lot in the CIS. CIS members realised that there is a certain line which Russia is willing to cross. During the Yeltsin era there were loud statements and threats but no moves, whereas today Russia is making one sided decisions, negotiating neither with allies nor partners.

Laumulin thinks that Russia’s conduct last August humiliated America, which was only rescued from further embarrassment by the election of a new administration in the White House. Laumulin says it was a direct blow to the Americans in the Caucasus.

The analyst says that no matter who Georgia’s leader is the country made a historic choice in 1989 by turning against the Soviet Union and targeting assimilation with NATO and the West. Consequently Georgia will always be a painful issue in Russian-Western relations.