http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/11745510/EU-condemns-Russia-over-creeping-annexation-of-Georgia.html The European Union warned of growing tensions on Thursday amid reports that Russia had seized control of part of an international oil pipeline by unilaterally redrawing Georgia's border with a Russian-backed breakaway republic. Georgia says that Russian troops based in South Ossetia moved markers reading “state border” several hundred meters further into Georgian territory on Tuesday, leaving a portion of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline under Russian control. Georgia has said the move was part of a campaign of “creeping annexation” that has also seen Russia erect new fences on other parts of the de-facto frontier. An EU foreign policy spokesman said the move "had led to tension in the area, with potentially negative effects on the local population, their livelihood and freedom of movement”. Russia has dismissed the reports as “propaganda.”
who isn't erecting fences or trying to impede 'freedom of movement' at the moment in Europe, everyone's doing it..
We recently drove through France, Belgium, Netherlands to Germany with no border controls whatsoever. First we knew we were in another country was on seeing the 'Welcome to' signs or my mobile provider texting. We could have gone all the way to Italy or Spain so I do not know what countries you are referring to.
Whatever analogies people are making or trying to make with other countries, this is entirely consistent with Russian expansionism under Putin and indeed throughout Russian history. THAT is the point, and as in the Crimean and Ukrainian cases all other arguments and particulars are distractions and diversions. Putin has succeeded so far because everyone gets hung up on the particulars and no one wants to address the basic fact. Of course they don't, it's too frightening.
Of course, what alternative is there? The new Cold War has been going on since Putin came to power. It's about time that Europe and the States started waging it, instead of letting Putin win by default (which he has been doing so far).
