Commentary
Thomas de Waal
{
"authors": [
"Thomas de Waal"
],
"type": "commentary",
"centerAffiliationAll": "",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Carnegie Europe",
"Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Europe",
"programAffiliation": "",
"programs": [],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"Caucasus",
"Russia",
"Georgia"
],
"topics": [
"Political Reform",
"Foreign Policy"
]
}
Source: Getty
Commentary
South Ossetian Scenarios
The new Russian legislation allowing regions of another country to seek to join the Russian Federation gives Moscow leverage over a number of regions. Georgians are worrying that South Ossetia could be one of these regions.
Published on Apr 29, 2014
If President Vladimir Putin is planning a move against Georgia, where would it come?
That was the question I heard half of Tbilisi discussing earlier this month.
The new Russian legislation allowing regions of another country to seek to join the Russian Federation gives Moscow leverage over a number of regions. First on the list is Transnistria, which has already applied to become part of Russia.
Abkhazia is a more complicated case, as most of the Abkhaz elite emphatically does not want to be part of Russia and still seeks the ever-elusive goal of independence.
Meeting officials from Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Moscow last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he "respects the will of the Abkhaz people, which has chosen independence."
Lavrov's words seemed to cover South Ossetia by implication too, but the case is very different. It is so small (with a current population of no more than 50,000 people) that its residents are not in control of its own destiny. But, given a choice, many South Ossetians would welcome the chance of union with the much bigger republic of North Ossetia on the other side of the mountains to form a single republic of “Alania” inside Russia.
So we should not discount a report I heard in Georgia earlier this month that the South Ossetian authorities are considering holding a referendum on union with Russia on June 8, to be held in parallel with their parliamentary elections. I was told that this was the message the hyper-active Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky brought to South Ossetia on March 28—although the only press report on the visit recorded Slutsky passing on birthday greetings to South Ossetian leader Leonid Tibilov and presenting him with a copy of Pravda from his birth-date in 1952.
Slutsky was one of the first Russian politicians to stir up Crimea and has also been instigating trouble in the Moldovan region of Gagauzia.
So Slutsky's visit may just have been a trial balloon.
Georgians are nervously worrying about a new wave of Russian pressure tactics against them, designed to halt the planned signing of a European Union Association Agreement in June. But at the moment the only news in Georgian-Russian relations is the continued thaw: the renewal of trade and talk of the restoration of a direct air link.
So one wise Georgian politician told me the government is also bracing itself for another Russian tactic: a charm offensive in which Moscow offers Tbilisi a new deal over South Ossetia in return for Georgia renouncing its European path.
If either of these scenarios come to pass we can be sure of one thing: ordinary South Ossetians will not be consulted about what the Russian leadership intends for them.
About the Author
Thomas de Waal
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe
Thomas de Waal is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
- There Is No Shortcut for Europe in Armenia
- Rewiring the South Caucasus: TRIPP and the New Geopolitics of ConnectivityArticle
Thomas de Waal, Areg Kochinyan, Zaur Shiriyev
Recent Work
Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie India
- Managing Divergence: India’s BRICS Presidency in 2026Article
This piece argues that India’s central challenge is not managing a single flashpoint but resolving the underlying tension between expansion and institutional coherency of the BRICS grouping.
Vrinda Sahai
- India–Africa Strategic Partnership: Challenges, Potential, and Possible PathwaysArticle
A partnership between India, a country of subcontinental size, and Africa, a continent of fifty-four countries, may seem asymmetric until one notes that both are home to nearly the same number of people—1.4 billion. This essay spells out the existing challenges to the partnership, its optimal potential, and the possible pathways to realize it over the next quarter-century.
Rajiv Bhatia
- Emerging From the “Zombie State” of Trade Agreements: The India-EU FTACommentary
The India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is shaping up to be one of the most consequential trade negotiations, both economically and strategically. But, what’s in the agreement, what’s missing, and what will determine its success in the years ahead
Vrinda Sahai, Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki
- India and a Changing Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Trump 2.0 EraResearch
Trump 2.0 has unsettled India’s external environment—but has not overturned its foreign policy strategy, which continues to rely on diversification, hedging, and calibrated partnerships across a fractured order.
- +6
Milan Vaishnav, ed., Sameer Lalwani, Tanvi Madan, …
- The Impact of U.S. Sanctions and Tariffs on India’s Russian Oil ImportsCommentary
This piece examines India’s response to U.S. sanctions and tariffs, specifically assessing the immediate market consequences, such as alterations in import costs, and the broader strategic implications for India’s energy security and foreign policy orientation.
Vrinda Sahai
