Great to see a Russian writing for 'The Hindu.'
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/intern...icle109172.ece
Russia to build base in Abkhazia
Vladimir Radyuhin
MOSCOW, February 18, 2010
Russia will build an inter-service military base in the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia that will strengthen position in the Caucasus and the Black Sea.
An agreement on a combined land, air and naval base was signed on the sidelines of Abkhaz President Sergei Bagabsh's visit.
The base is designed “to protect Abkhazia's sovereignty and security, including against international terrorist groups”, said the document.
The agreement is valid for the next 49 years, after which it may be automatically prolonged every 15 years.
Russia and Abkhazia also signed a host of bilateral agreements on cooperation in the defence and economic fields.
“These agreements provide a foundation for the peaceful development of Abkhazia as an independent state,” said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev....
The military base in Abkhazia, which will accommodate up to 3,700 troops, will project Russia's air and naval power across the Caucasus and the Black Sea and will counterbalance the ongoing build-up of U.S. military presence in the coastal states of Romania and Bulgaria. Russia also has a military base in the former Soviet republic of Armenia.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61F3JE20100216
Georgia's rebel Abkhazia to allow Russian base
Amie Ferris-Rotman
MOSCOW
Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:56am EST
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region said on Tuesday it would allow sponsor Russia to build a military base on its soil for land troops, strengthening the region's dependence on Moscow and provoking ire from Tbilisi....
"The agreement on Wednesday will allow for one, united military base on Abkhaz territory, for Russian land troops," the rebel region's deputy defense minister, Garri Kupalba, told Reuters by telephone from the regional capital Sukhumi.
He said the new base, which would link several points across Abkhazia and accommodate at least 3,000 land troops, including units of Russia's FSB border guards, would be built "sometime in the near future."
The European Union and Western alliance NATO have repeatedly expressed concern that a Moscow-led military build-up in Abkhazia threatens Georgia's territorial integrity.
It is also watched with unease by Western powers for its proximity to crucial energy routes which flow to the EU.
Georgia decried the new plans for a land base as illegal.
"Abkhazia and South Ossetia are Georgian territories, and the deployment of foreign troops on the territory of another country is called an occupation," parliamentary speaker David Bakradze told reporters on Tuesday in Tbilisi.
"Since the Russian aggression in 2008, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have become one big military base for Russia."
Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gvindzia, said the troops for the new base are already stationed in the region.
LAND, AIR AND NAVAL TROOPS
Tbilisi's pro-Western leaders accuse Russia of effectively annexing rebel Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in bloody separatist wars in the early 1990s.
Since Moscow recognized them as independent, Venezuela, Nicaragua and tiny island state Nauru followed suit....
Russia also installed land, air and naval troops in the rebel region of 200,000, and started work on several bases which are yet to be completed, causing NATO and the United States to call the moves a violation of international law.
A naval base is planned in Ochamchire on the northern coast, airborne troops for Gudauta on the coast just north of Sukhumi, and land troops in the Kodori Gorge area in the south of the region near the de-facto border with Georgia. It is not yet clear if the Kodori Gorge area will be included in the new projected land base, Kupalba said.