What the F**k is going on in: The rest of the Caucasus

Here comes the ironic twist!!! There HAD to be an ironic twist. You can't behave the way Vlad has (not that we are condemning it...) and not face a backlash.
After crushing the cheeky murmurings of neighbouring Georgia, Russia may now have to give in to claims of "territorial integrity" from enclaves of its own. Oh the glorious beautiful irony of it all. If only we could go back six months and ask the EU ministers at the Kosovo roundtable if they had any idea what sort of beast they were unleashing....

Tatarstan(in red) is an oil-rich and politically stable province in the Caucasus. Having seen Russia giving it the whole "if Kosovo can have independence then so should Abkazia and South Ossetia", the All-Tatar Civic Centre is now in the corner of the room, giving it all "em, guys, over here...". According to some Tatar guy "Russia has lost the credibility not to recognise us". Maybe he's right. But, my Tatar friend, do you remember what happened in Chechnya??? Big Vlad is no bumbling Georgian cretin-President. This will NOT be like taking candy from a baby. "The candy will not be wrested easily from my hands, quite unlike what one would expect in the case of a baby", Putin was quote as saying yesterday.
According to Wikipedia:
The unofficial Tatarstan motto is: Buldırabız! (We can!). Em, maybe this time lads, ye can't...

Neighbouring Bashkortostan (somewhere near the red dot), is a major hub of the Russian petrochemical industry. They complain that Moscow takes over 80% of the region's riches per year. Well, tough shit little man!! This week they accused Moscow of "double standards" in the Georgia debacle and called on the officials of their region to ask what it is they can do for their people. My advice would be this: keep asking those questions, and expect a nuke in the ass.

Finally for this edition, we have Cherkessia. The people of this region are ethnically related to the Abkhazians, and have been rejoicing in the recent events. But, of course, they now wonder why they can't follow their cousins' footsteps.

So there are real questions to be asked here. Are we on the brink of a return to the Yeltsin-era vision of sovereignty for whoever fancies running their own show ? (this must surely have been how Yeltsin himself got into power, in some sort of twisted Charlie and the Chocolate Factory style nightmare). Alternatively, Putin's only way to avoid one breakaway may be to crush every single one in typical fashion. If one Russian enclave slips away, there will be serious door- knocking at the Kremlin. Watch this space....