Post-Soviet separatism: three Kosovos for the price of one; building relations from scratch, the new Georgian Ambassador says his country means no harm and Ukraine: 350 years of Orange Revolutions.

VREMYA NOVOSTEI reports from Thursday’s meeting of the State Duma Committee for CIS affairs: Russia is not yet ready to recognise the full independence of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and the Transdniester republic. However, Russia may opt for postponed independence for them.
 
KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA writes that the State Duma has finally had its revenge for Kosovo. Not yielding to those MPs who called for immediate recognition, the Russian Parliament nevertheless recommended the Foreign Ministry open Russian missions in the capitals of the three unrecognised republics.
 
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA reports on the meeting of the three leaders of the unrecognised post-Soviet states where they decided to unite their efforts to gain international recognition for their countries’ independence.  All three, writes the paper, are sure their nations have a stronger claim to independence than Kosovo.
 
MOSKOVSKIY KOMSOMOLETS writes that the position of the leaders of the unrecognised states is understandable: after Kosovo no one in the world would ever be able to persuade them that after 15 years of factual independence and effective self-governance their nations cannot be legally independent.
 
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA again reports from Abkhazia: with the lifting of economic sanctions spirits are high in Sukhumi, the republic’s capital city. The paper quotes a local: The lifting of the sanctions today is a legal confirmation of what is happening in real life.
 
VREMYA NOVOSTEI introduces the new Georgian Ambassador to Russia, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who says that his first task in Moscow is to persuade Russians that Georgia is not wishing them ill.
 
IZVESTIA reports from Ukraine: President Yushchenko is hell-bent on erecting a statue for Hetman Ivan Vigovski, the leader of Ukraine of the mid-17th century who won the Battle of Konotop over the Russian army. Hetman Vigovski twice betrayed his oath to the Russian Tsar – as he did with his oath to the King of Poland. At the end he was hanged for treason by a verdict of a Polish court.