Russian border guards have begun patrolling the de-facto borders of Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported on Saturday, citing the region's leader, Eduard Kokoity.
"Immediately after the agreement on the joint protection of the borders was signed last Thursday in Moscow, Russia border troops were brought into South Ossetian territory," Kokoity said, Interfax reported.
"Right now, Russian border troops are monitoring the situation at the border with Georgia and settling the initial issues involved in protecting it," he added.
Look, we're not going to start a war to reclaim those bits of land. The people there want to be part of Russia, amazingly enough. Not that we should recognize Russian control. We never recognize Russian legal authority over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after World War II. And eventually they were freed.
We'll never let Georgia enter NATO if they seek to regain those provinces and risk war over a Georgian attack. Georgia needs to let go and move forward.
The focus needs to be on Georgia building an army capable of defending their remaining territory from a conventional Russian attack and joining NATO. And the Georgian need to develop their own freedom and economy to make the South Ossetians and Abkhazians regret their decision to leave Georgia.
My guess is that by the time this happens, Georgia won't want the relatively poor separatist regions back.
