President Vladimir Putin signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia on Monday, angering Tbilisi, which said Moscow was looking to annex the territory.
Russia and Georgia fought a war in 2008 over Abkhazia and a twin region of South Ossetia, provoking the worst crisis between Moscow and the West since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Moscow recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries following the war and Monday’s move comes just seven months after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea and threw its weight behind separatists battling in eastern Ukraine.
Putin and Abkhazia’s leader Raul Khadzhimba signed the agreement …read more
Source: Voice of America
