Sierra takes Marzipan's comment about a questionable 50 million dollars at face value. Where's your source on this, marzipan? Anyway, South Ossetia and Abkhazia conduct their foreign affairs independent of Moscow, however, with Moscow it's most important strategic, economic, and political ally, not to mention closest neighbor (on a par with Georgia) it is natural for them to have more opportunities to open dialogue with states that have good relations with Moscow.

Nauru, an eight square-mile rock in the Pacific with about 11,000 inhabitants, requested $50 million as the price for partially recognizing Moscow’s partition of Georgia. If this is a triumph of Russian diplomacy, then Russia urgently needs a new Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As so often through history, Russia revels in image over substance. “World’s Smallest and Largest States Have Recognized Abkhazia” the headline proudly proclaims, as if to imply that with the extremities now taken care of, the world’s recognition of Russia’s dismemberment of Georgia is all but in the bag. Of course Russia itself is the biggest recognizer and the smallest looks suspiciously like having swung an enterprising rubles for recognition deal. In this light, the reality of Moscow’s Georgian adventure seems even more embarrassing than before. Russia still doesn’t seem to realize that Potemkin politics does impress, but diametrically opposite to the hoped-for way.