Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
Zurab Noghaideli |
It's a checkmate strategy that appears to be aimed at driving a wedge into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – and ultimately dismembering it – by using current and wannabe members as pawns, and it's Russia's newest plan for "defense," according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Moscow has been apoplectic over NATO's advance eastward and already in August 2008 invaded the Republic of Georgia after it sought affiliation with NATO. But besides its military influence, Russia is manipulating energy agreements, arms contracts and even elections to extend its influence.
Now, the Kremlin is openly cultivating a pro-Moscow ex-prime minister, Zurab Noghaideli, as an alternative to the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, which Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has charged with "acts of terrorism."
By making such a declaration, Russia now has legal authority under its recently amended Defense Law to mount an offensive campaign as a "defense" when it determines Russian "citizens" of the Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, or other Russian interests anywhere, are under attack.
In actively assisting in wresting away the provinces from Georgia, Moscow gave them diplomatic recognition as sovereign countries, a move that has not been backed by the West. Russia even bestowed Russian citizenship and passports on the residents of both provinces.
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Moscow also has threatened the Ukraine, which similarly has sought NATO membership, and has taken action to back its choice for president, Viktor Yanukovich, who just won the Feb. 8 presidential election.
Part of an expected payback is that Yanukovich is expected to extend Russia's lease, now scheduled to expire in 2017, on the much-coveted port of Sevastopol in the Crimea to station the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The fallout also means Ukraine likely no longer will pursue NATO membership.
Yanukovich also is expected to smooth out the contentious issue of natural gas exports through Ukraine to Europe by agreeing to a natural gas consortium.
The arrangement would allow Moscow to be involved in managing Ukrainian pipelines that originate in Russia to bring natural gas to Europe.
"We have to return to a friendly strategic format of our relations (with Russia) and work for the benefit of both countries," Yanukovich said.
In further work that could impact NATO, Moscow is using more of the economic card to entice existing NATO members Turkey and France into its strategic plan.
Russia has been playing off Turkey against other members of the Western alliance by buoying it up as a potential energy center to feed oil and natural gas supplies into Europe.
Paris similarly is looking at the economic benefits in working more closely with Moscow. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently approved the sale of the Mistral-class helicopter-carrier to Russia and is considering its request for three more as well as co-production prospects.
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