From: slider@anashram.com   
      
   > - oh-oh... so is 'georgia' gonna become a problem now??   
   >   
   > (anything that makes the situation more unstable out there can't be good)   
      
   update:   
      
   Russia cautions regional allies against aligning with the United States   
      
   MOSCOW, March 10 (Reuters) - Russia on Friday cautioned allies across the   
   former Soviet Union of the perils of aligning with the United States after   
   what Moscow said was a Western-backed coup attempt in Georgia similar to   
   the Ukrainian "Maidan" revolution of 2014.   
      
   Russia, tied down in the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two,   
   has seen its authority challenged by a number of neighbours and   
   traditional allies since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine   
   in February last year.   
      
   In Tbilisi, thousands of Georgians took to the streets over three   
   consecutive nights to protest against what they said was a   
   Russian-inspired "foreign agents" law that threatened to derail the   
   country's bid for closer ties with Europe.   
      
   "It seems to me that all the countries located around the Russian   
   Federation should draw their own conclusions about how dangerous it is to   
   take a path towards engagement with the United States' zone of   
   responsibility, its zone of interests."   
      
   The remarks from Putin's top diplomat indicate the level of nervousness in   
   Moscow over the weakening of its authority everywhere from Armenia and   
   Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan in Central   
   Asia.   
      
   Putin casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with the West over   
   the future of both Russia and its former Soviet and imperial satellites   
   which since 1991 have been courted by the United States, NATO, the EU, and   
   China.   
      
   Washington, Brussels and NATO say they are legitimately building ties with   
   countries which became independent after the fall of the Soviet Union -   
   and that many fear their much more powerful neighbour Russia.   
      
   POST-SOVIET BATTLE   
      
   For centuries, Russia has been the ultimate arbiter of affairs across the   
   vast lands which for nearly three centuries made up the Russian empire and   
   then the Soviet Union.   
      
   But the war in Ukraine, which Putin casts as a watershed moment when   
   Moscow finally pushed back against the West's attempts to contain it, has   
   tied down Russia's military.   
      
   Opponents of Putin say the war could ultimately usher in a new phase of   
   the Soviet collapse that could sow chaos across Russia and allow rivals to   
   turn Moscow's former satellites either towards the West or towards China.   
      
   Washington and the broader West, Lavrov said, wanted to punish Russia   
   because it was perceived as "too independent a player" which challenged   
   the hegemony of the United States.   
      
   Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister since 2004, said that events in Georgia   
   were orchestrated from outside and motivated by a Western attempt to claw   
   away Russia's traditional allies.   
      
   He said Georgia's law on foreign agents, which parliament dropped on   
   Friday, had been used as a pretext "to start what is, essentially, an   
   attempt to force a change of power."   
      
   He did not present evidence to back his assertions. Opposition politicians   
   and protesters in Georgia deny they are puppets.   
      
   They say they simply did not agree with the proposed law and want a   
   Western future which Russia, that fought a war against Georgia in 2008,   
   does not offer.   
      
   https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-cautions-regional-allies-ag   
   inst-aligning-with-united-states-2023-03-10/   
      
   ### - ukraine-2 perhaps...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)