LONDON — Russian recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is a cynical ploy aimed at annoying Georgians and their supporters in the West. If these two enclaves within Georgia deserve to be independent, why has Russia not granted independence to Chechnya or Dagestan?
The Russians, in support of Serbia, have also refused to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which has a largely Albanian population.
West European countries that have recognized the independence of Kosovo argue that Kosovo is different because Yugoslavia was a federal state that broke up into separate republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia), so there was no sense in leaving Kosovo as part of Serbia when it was ethnically, linguistically and religiously so different from Serbia.