Prometheus 6

Russia Recognizes Breakaway Georgian Regions
By Philip P. Pan and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 26, 2008; 9:16 AM

MOSCOW, Aug. 26 -- President Dmitry Medvedev recognized the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia on Tuesday and called on other nations to do the same, escalating what has become one of the most serious conflicts between Russia and the United States since the end of the Cold War.

In a statement broadcast live on national television, Medvedev said he signed decrees recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia because it was the "only way to protect people's lives." He said Russia had tried for years to resolve the ethnic conflict between Georgia and the two provincesthrough peaceful negotiations but that Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili, made a negotiated settlement impossible by trying to seize South Ossetia by military force and slaughter its residents.