pnorrell

Another day in Russia, another dead journalist... This one in a pretty sensitive area, however. Some gasoline for that fire, anyone? Deputy says Russian police kill Web site owner 18 minutes ago MOSCOW - The owner of an independent Web site critical of authorities was shot and killed Sunday by police in a volatile province in southern Russia, his colleague said. Police arrested Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev on Sunday, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province near Chechnya, said the site's deputy editor, Ruslan Khautiyev. Police whisked Yevloyev away in a car and later dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head, Khautiyev said. He said Yevloyev died in a hospital shortly afterward. In Moscow, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement that Yevloyev was detained by police and died in an "incident" while being taken to police headquarters for an interrogation. Markin did not elaborate, saying that a check to clarify the circumstances of Yevloyev's death had begun. The committee is under the Prosecutor General's office. Yevloyev has angered regional authorities with bold criticism of police treatment of civilians in the region. A court in June ordered him to shut his site on charges of spreading "extremist" statements, but it reappeared under a different name. Khautiyev said that Yevloyev arrived in Ingushetia from Moscow on Sunday on the same plane with regional President Murat Zyazikov. Police blocked the jet on the runway after it landed in Ingushetia's provincial capital, Magas, entered the plane and took Yevloyev out. Yevloyev's death is likely to further stir up passions in Ingushetia, which has been plagued by frequent raids and ambushes against federal forces and local authorities. Government critics attribute the attacks to anger fueled by abductions, beatings, unlawful arrests and killings of suspects by government forces and local allied paramilitaries. Many in Ingushetia are intensely unhappy with Zyazikov, a former KGB officer and a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Immediately after Yevloyev's detention, his Web site urged Ingushetia's residents to gather outside the headquarters of a leading opposition group.

True, but don't forget the CIA sold arms to Iran in the '80s and then used the money, together with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, to finance the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. I wouldn't put anything past them, even with the current "war on terror" priority.

Originally posted by: Ecvi As, phrases that is time to recognise independence of republics as a part of the Russian Federation here sounded, be not too lazy and find that the president of the Chechen republic has answered this Ramzan Kadyrav,quote> Thanks for participating here, Ecvi. It's not easy to get into a debate like this with the use of an online translator - if anything is unclear, just ask. I read Kadyrov's comments - basically that Chechnya legitimized its membership in the Russian Federation through a referendum. Sorry, but I seriously doubt anyone outside Russia actually believes in the legitimacy of a referendum held in Chechnya (anywhere in Russia, but particularly Chechnya) after the second Chechnya war. What happened was a business deal between Kadyrov and his father and Putin - something like "you stay loyal to Russia and we'll allow you to do whatever you want in Chechnya." With so much of the population dead or in exile, it was not a difficult matter for Kadyrov to then put together a sham referendum to validate the deal - buying votes with cash or through intimidation of the few remaining, exhausted and desperately poor people there. For me, the idea of "kill everyone who opposes and then hold a referendum" is no more valid than what Abkhazia and South Ossetia had wanted to do - "Ethnically cleanse everyone who opposes and then hold a referendum." As it turned out, however, they didn't even need a referendum. Russia recognized them without even a superficial attempt at democratic process. Mark my words - there will be more fighting in Chechnya within our lifetimes. Kadyrov and Putin have just negotiated a break, which serves them both at the moment. A new generation of Chechen boys will grow up hating Russia just as much as their fathers and, when they're able to fire a gun, it wil all start again. Also, I am quite sure there are people in Washington and in London and in Riyad who are discussing ways to pour fuel on that fire in the coming years.

THE TIMES OF LONDON August 28, 2008 Russian-backed paramilitaries are “ethnically cleansing” villages on Georgian soil, refugees and officials told The Times yesterday. By James Hider in Gori South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless buffer zone set up by the Russian Army just north of Gori. The violence, close to the border with the breakaway republic recognised by Russia this week as independent, has prompted a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tbilisi. People who had started to return to their villages in the area are now fleeing for a second time, joined by many elderly people who had refused to leave their homes when the Russians invaded two weeks ago. A straggle of refugees gathered yesterday at the feet of a giant statue of Josef Stalin, Gori’s infamous native son, to register with the local authorities and the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, for emergency supplies and accommodation in three tent cities being built near a football stadium. “They had no uniform — I think they were Ossetians,” said Siyala Sereteli, 73, who fled her village of Irganeteye the previous day when irregular forces arrived. Weeping, she lifted her sleeve to show a deep bruise inflicted by a blow from a rifle stock. “They took everything they wanted, even the fans. They beat up a man using sticks and a chair and then threw him in the river,” she said. Other refugees were clustered in the shabby city hall, trying to glean news of relatives still inside the buffer zone, which Russia said it had established to prevent Georgian attacks on South Ossetians, many of whom hold Russian passports. A look of deep shock froze the face of Oliko Gnolidze when she managed to make contact on her mobile phone with an uncle, Nodari Jashiashvili, in Tkviai, about a 20-minute drive away. “There is panic here, they are burning houses,” came the crackly voice of her uncle. “I don’t know what to do. Ossetians are in the village.” Ms Gnolidze, 38, said that in earlier conversations her uncle had told her that only a few people remained in the village, with Ossetian irregulars looting under the noses of Russian troops, described by Moscow as “peacekeepers”. She said the Russians had forced her uncle to cook a meal for them, after which he had fled and hidden in nearby woods. Shorta Kharadze, a 45-year-old lorry driver, returned to Gori from Tbilisi, where he had sheltered during the fighting, after his mother’s neighbours from the village of Megheverizkevi told him that she had been murdered by South Ossetian militiamen. Looking gaunt, Mr Kharadze said the neighbours had telephoned him to say that two men in uniform had come to the home of his 77-year-old mother, Oliya, and demanded to know why she hadn’t left the village. She had been wounded in the arm during the fighting in the area but had refused to leave. “They beat her with an axe handle. There’s a pond in our yard — she fell near it and they pushed her in. I don’t know if she was still alive when they pushed her in or if she drowned,” Mr Kharadze said. “It’s like ethnic cleansing, genocide,” said Koba Tlashadze, a council official in Gori, which was itself briefly occupied by Russian forces before last week’s ceasefire. “It’s a special operation codenamed Clean Field, because they are emptying the villages.” The UNHCR has voiced its concern about reports of “new forcible displacement caused by marauding militias north of Gori near the boundary with South Ossetia”. It said as many as 400 displaced people had gathered on Gori’s square on Tuesday “after being forced to flee their villages by marauders operating in the so-called buffer zone established along the boundary with South Ossetia”. Alessandra Morelli, a UNHCR co-ordinator in Gori, said that confirming the stories was impossible because Russian checkpoints had sealed off the buffer zone. Farther west, in Borjomi, Georgia’s Environment Minister accused Russia of having deliberately started extensive forest fires in the country’s main natural park by firing incendiary flares into tinder-dry mountains. After a helicopter inspection of the still-smouldering area, Irakli Ghvaladze said an investigation was being set up into Russian strikes on the park — far from military operations — for almost a week during the conflict. “We have begun to investigate this ecocide,” he said. The fires had destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, with fire-fighting helicopters unable to operate for fear of being shot down. “Who knows why the Russians did this? They destroy everything,” he said.

Originally posted by: Yeah_Right if u people explore some more on russiatoday.com u will see we are just trying to get this new countries on their feet so they dont get blown up again as soon as we leave. does anyone here actually think NATO makes the world safer place? that is what they are supposed to do, but they do oppositequote> Well, I hope we will one day see the Chechens and the Ingush and the Tatars and the Cercassians and the Dagestanis and all the other hundreds of ethnic minorities in Russia find an end to their suffering and be able to celebrate the independence of their nations as well. I hope somebody will get these small nations "up on their feet" so they can resist Russian aggression. I don't think the Russian government will be so protective of "their citizens" if it is Russia those citizens are trying to secede from, rather than Georgia. In fact, we've already seen how they handled Chechnya. It's certainly debatable whether NATO makes the world a safer place but there is a large and now quickly growing number of people who do at least feel it makes them safe from Russia. Ask the Baltic states and Poland who I am sure go to bed every night since the Georgia crisis started thinking how lucky they are to have already made it in to NATO. Support for NATO has dramatically increased in Ukraine, Moldova and even Azerbaijan since this crisis started. People see NATO as the only way to protect themselves from the neighborhood bully. Originally posted by: fukuda He forgot somewhere the violent annexion of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgia in 1989.quote> There was no violent annexation of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia. Rather, they violently fought to leave. They were part of Georgia - independent Georgia, the Soviet Republic of Georgia, the first independent Democratic Republic of Georgia and the ancient kingdom of Georgia. You can't annex, violently or otherwise, territory that is already yours. Originally posted by: fukuda It's funny how far hipocrisy can go for someone who ordered to bombard one of its own regions. quote> Yes, hilarious. And Putin proves hypocrisy can go so far as to have him destroy all of Chechnya and flatten Grozny and then invade a sovereign country to punish them for supposedly doing the same thing a few years later.

Originally posted by: Yeah_Right i mainly get my information from russia today. www.russiatoday.com i now know what bias mean, but very rare is u not seeing bias in media. quote> Russia Today is the English-language service of RIA Novosti, which is the Russian government press agency. There is bias in the media everywhere, but the information that comes from RIA Novosti is nothing more than a dressed up press release directly from the Russian government. That crosses the line from bias right into propaganda. But then, if you're limited only to Russian sources, I don't think you can really get anything but propaganda. Not on TV anyway... More so on the internet but even journalists at newspapers and web sites that aren't government owned or influenced are now scared being killed, kidnapped or otherwise intimidated, so the Russian media is just a cheering section for Putin. That's a safe story to write - how great and right and strong Putin is... You obviously speak English well enough, Yeah_Right - well enough to make 248 posts here on Simtropolis and to participate in these lively current events threads. Why don't you check out media from outside Russia? It doesn't have to be American or British if you find that distasteful - Deutsche Welle has an excellent English service (might have a Russian service too, now that I think about it). Agence France Presse is one of the world's leading wire services and reports in English. Reuters is Dutch, I believe, and is another of the main wire services...

This is a description of what I'm talking about. I wish I had a better source than the LA Times, but I have heard similar stories 100 times by now directly from people who have left these areas - first along the Abkhaz border and Georgian villages in the former South Ossetia and now in the "buffer zone" Russia has established and I thought this was an accurate representation of the stories they tell. Let me repeat before you read this that there is broad agreement (including here in Georgia) that Saakashvili should not have done what he did - so please spare me any statements that Georgia brought it on themselves. These people did nothing wrong - they didn't ask for this and they didn't do anything to anyone. Georgian villagers feel trapped in a danger zone August 24, 2008 LOS ANGELES TIMES August 24, 2008 Sunday Behind Russian lines, residents say they are at the mercy of militiamen who loot, burn and kill. By Megan K. Stack, Times Staff Writer When cars come this way, through the deadened air of this half-abandoned town, the residents shiver and slip into their homes. They've buried their dead in shallow graves in their gardens and orchards. They've hidden from roving bands of militiamen who they say have repeatedly tramped through town. And now they wait for somebody to come and put an end to these days of lawlessness and anxiety. In the sprinkling of farming villages behind Russian lines, the war drags on and the future is clouded. Georgian residents say they have been subjected to repeated rounds of ethnic violence at the hands of militiamen from breakaway South Ossetia and Russia -- looting, arson and even killings. "With violence, they're trying to force people to flee," said Nunu Kirkvalishvili, a 40-year-old woman in the village of Marana. "We don't even bother to hope anymore that somebody will come to protect us." These Georgian farmers live in the so-called security zone that Moscow has pledged to maintain outside the Russian-backed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Out of their government's reach, they are stuck in a deadly power vacuum even after the shadow of Russian occupation has lifted from much of Georgia. "They don't come out and say they want us off the land, but they are forcing us off," Lily Giguashvili said. "They say we will have to get Russian passports." Giguashvili is a slight, tremulous woman, dragging on Saturday from one house to the next with a dusty leopard-print bathrobe thrown over her clothes. The circles under her eyes are so deep they look like bruises. It's been a week since militiamen abducted her husband, along with 14 other men from the town, she said. The gunmen forced the men to lie down in the road with their hands on their heads, witnesses said. Then they ordered them all into white minivans and drove away, telling residents the men were needed to help dig graves for the South Ossetian dead. They haven't been heard from again. "I don't know if he's alive or dead," Giguashvili said, her eyes clouding with tears. A few days after her husband was abducted, three militiamen burst into her house. They took everything Giguashvili owned, right down to her tea kettle. "They put a Kalashnikov to my chest and said, 'Do you have money, gold or a car?' " Giguashvili said. "I started crying and one of them said, 'Don't worry, we won't do anything wrong to you.' " Now Giguashvili and the other villagers sleep in the orchards. They figure they're safer in the woods and fields than in the houses that are steady temptations for the militias. "The militias are still coming, they're still driving through and robbing us," said Zayra Chikhladze, 55. "When cars come through, we're just hiding. There is nobody to protect us, and we're very scared." The villages seemed stuck in an eerie limbo. There was little food, only the fruits and vegetables growing in gardens. Hot winds blew through the deserted streets, banging torn sheet metal against half-burned houses, stirring tangles of wildflowers along the roadsides. In Karaleti, on the outer edge of the newly Russian-held territory, 21-year-old Beso Bibilashvili named two people who, he said, had died at the hands of the militiamen. As he spoke, Russian army trucks rumbled past, but they didn't bother to stop, and the soldiers hardly seemed to take notice of the smattering of townspeople crouched along the roads. "The soldiers don't say anything to us. They only enter in houses and ask for food and drink," Bibilashvili said. "Who has anything to give them? But what they can find, they take." The grocery store in Karaleti is a smashed shell. After being looted clean by the militias, there is nothing but a handful of dried macaroni and a scattering of spent ammunition cartridges on the floor. The beauty parlor is a charred hulk, a huge black dog lies dead on its side in the doorway, legs jutting out. The smell is terrible, but nobody dares to be seen cleaning up after the militias. Homes have been looted and burned; at least two men were shot dead, villagers say. "They were looking for young men," said Maru Mestumrishvili, a 57-year-old woman in Karaleti. "They were entering into yards and making inquiries, and if they found them, they shot them." Here in Tkviavi, Tamaz Kareli found his neighbor gunned down at the gate of his house. The body was already starting to rot in the summer heat. So Kareli hauled the hefty corpse into his backyard, past the plum trees heavy with fruit and grapes ripening to rusty purple on the vines, and dug a shallow grave. "It was horrible, of course, but I told myself I had to do it," Kareli said. "I tried to keep myself together." When the family comes back, he said, they'll give him a proper burial, in the cemetery. The smell of death is already seeping up from the ground. "We'll put him in the cemetery one day," Kareli said. "The time will come."

Originally posted by: Yeah_Right i can tell u that we will not pull out of georgia until our flag waves butifully in the wind.quote> Now that's the first accurate thing you've posted in this thread. Certainly more accurate than your earlier claims that Russia was simply acting to protect "its citizens." @SimFox: Throughout this, you have articulated a considered and generally balanced and well-informed point of view. I don't think you need to worry about the civility of the discussion or loss of respect for each other as individuals. I have to say that, while I am on the opposite side of this issue from you, most of your points in your last post are true. That said, there are some highly questionable elements of your post here that display a "colored" interpretation of events... Originally posted by: SimFox In fact there were two separate Georgian kingdoms that joined Russia empire (because they were seaking protection against Persia and Ottoman empire) at different time (about 10 years apart). Another important point the neither of those Gerogian kingdoms had any claim for either Ossetia or Abkhazia.quote> This is true strictly speaking, but the way you present this information is misleading. Abkhazia has been a part of "Georgia" since before Georgia even existed - going back to the ancient Kingdom of Colchis (where Jason and the Argonauts went in search of the Golden Fleece in Greek mythology). True, Abkhazia has had its own royal families and feudal powers and at times has also been an independent kingdom, but for the vast majority of the past 2500 years it (including Sochi, by the way) has been part of Georgia or one of its constituent entities (Kingdom of Imereti, Principality of Mingrelia, etc.). Even when independent, Abkhazia has always been closely allied with Georgia (or rather with Georgians, in whatever political entity they lived through the years) with intermarriage of the royal families and close cooperation between them. At the time they were annexed by Russia, the reason Abkhazia was separated from Georgia was that it was occupied by Turks. That hardly means the Georgian Kingdoms didn't have any claim to it! As for Ossetia, your statement is again true, if you're talking about what is now known as North Ossetia (the only Ossetia that existed until 1922). But then, Georgia hasn't ever and isn't now claiming North Ossetia. South Ossetia was always Georgian land, including at the time of annexation by Russia. This is not some arbitrary border like those drawn by European colonial powers throughout the world but rather is a function of an indisputable (and unmistakable) natural barrier - the Caucasus mountains. South of the range is and always was Georgia. Furthermore, both areas were part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia during the country's first brief escape from Russian control after WWI and remained part of Georgia (albeit as autonomous republics/oblasts) after Georgia's second annexation in 1921. They were not "given" to Georgia by Stalin by any means. Originally posted by: SimFox Which Georgia as its FIRST independent act had revoked! "Ossetins are SCUM to be wiped out"... and so were Abkhazs this is a slogan Of Georgian OFFICIAL democracy. I think the West should be proud to be associated with these, shouldn't it? quote> Again, this is true on the surface, but not exactly the full picture. Yes, there was a wave of dangerous, poisonous and destructive nationalism in Georgia in the late '80s and early '90s - just as there was among Ossetians and Moldovans and Chechens and Abkhaz and Armenians and any number of other nationalities (including millions of Russians outside of Russia proper who all of a sudden found themselves a hated minority in a foreign country). Yes, Gamsakhurdia was elected based on this nationalism as he had been a proponent of protecting Georgian culture and language from Russification and a dissident in Soviet prisons for many years. However, the "Georgia for Georgians" slogan originally referred only to getting Georgia out from under Russian control. Unfortunately, the Ossetians began fighting to prevent their incorporation into an independent Georgia even before Georgia became independent and Gamsakhurdia seized on this wave of nationalism to propel him to power and then got carried away, letting nationalism be his only policy. In case you aren't aware, he is far from a popular figure in Georgia. People blame him now for artificially stirring up ethnic hatreds and for causing the conflicts that plagued Georgia in its first years of independence. In all my time studying this place, visiting here and now living here I have never heard anyone speak fondly of Gamsakhurdia or voice their agreement for his nationalist policies. He and his policies are almost universally seen as a black mark on Georgian history. You can be sure something similar will happen with Saakashvili eventually. People here are furious at him for getting Georgia into this war. However, Russia needs to realize that the harder they push for his removal, the stronger he becomes here. If Russia backs off and let's him start trying to deal with rebuilding the economy and the infrastructure and feeding the 100,000 or so refugees that have been created, he will be totally screwed and Georgians will get rid of him themselves. As long as he has the Russians to point to and blame for continuing to strangle and abuse the country and as long as Georgians think the Russians' goal is to get rid of him, the more they will support and defend him. Originally posted by: SimFox Why Russian troops had moved into Gori. Don't know, but I may suspect that that was an absolute Ad-hock decision. To understand it you should recall what had presided to that occupation. Did Russian land troops attacked the city? And pushed Georgian army out of it? Not really Georgian army in a PANIC had run away - faster then refuges. and so did Georgian police - agencies of the Georgian democratic and liberal state headed by Great freedom-fighter Saakashvili had simply abandoned it's population. quote> On Monday night, the 11th, everybody here (including me) thought there would be Russian troops attacking Tbilisi by sunrise on Tuesday. The panicked withdrawal from Gori was in desperation to set up some kind of defense of the capital. Similarly, the Russian occupation was certainly not to provide order and protect the population in the absence of Georgian police and military - because they did not restore order or protect anyone for several days. The whole area around Gori was looted by Cossacks and Ossetians - people held up at gunpoint, cars stolen, people kidnapped, shops vandalized, homes robbed. The Russians in a few cases participated and in most cases stood by and watched. Those people in Gori were not guilty of anything - they didn't hate Ossetians and really didn't even hate Russians before last week. Now they do though, and it will last a generation at least. I highly doubt the decision to move into Gori was "ad-hoc" as you say. By holding Gori, they cut the country in two, making transportation of anything, including troops and equipment, impossible between east and west. It seems a perfectly clear and perfectly reasonable military objective. What is unforgivable is what the Russians let happen in the areas they occupied. Originally posted by: SimFox Russia, no doubt, wanted to give and a lesson that would show that it wouldn't idly stand and watch how West had been braking every promise it had given Russia in the last 20 years. quote> I'm curious to know what promises you're referring to - not because I disagree necessarily but because I'm genuinely interested to know if and why Russia thinks the US has betrayed it...

Keep in mind that Medvedev signed the agreement on Saturday, supposedly committing to an "immediate withdrawal." Here we are on Tuesday and there is no visible sign along the roads or the towns between here and Kutaisi that the Russians are going anywhere. One funny note that I saw myself here in the city - there is a protest going on outside the Russian embassy. People are piling up furniture, old TVs, refrigerators, boots, toilets and any other old junk they care to haul out there, to protest the widespread looting that's been going on in Russian held areas. They're holding signs that read, "If you needed this stuff, all you had to do was ask..."

Originally posted by: simoplis_mayor This is good news, lets just see if it will last. Edit: I just saw this on cnn.com, Georgia is accusing Russia of cutting a vitial rail line. quote> Right! To protect Russian citizens from the danger of Georgian rail transport! They're digging in and preparing protected positions along the road between Tbilisi and Gori. They are in Kaspi and Khashuri and Akhalgori, expanding their presence on Georgian soil. They and their Abkhaz allies have already ethnically-cleansed 13 villages in western Georgia, seized a power plant (I guess to protect Russian citizens from the danger of Georgian electricity) and moved the border.

So far, the only dead civilians I've actually seen on TV, including on Vesti, are in and around Gori and the ethnic Georgian villages of South Ossetia and it was Russian bombing and Ossetian militias that killed them. If you can point me to footage posted somewhere showing large numbers of dead "Russian citizens" please do so.

Just to point out - this is not about Georgia thinking of them as separatists or calling them separatists... They are, in fact, separatists. They are groups who, with Russian support, took up arms against Georgia in the 90's, to forcibly exclude Georgian government control and expel ethnic Georgians. That's what separatists are.

Off topic, indeed - but I sympathize with your point. You've got it a little wrong though. CNN definitely reported the exodus of Serbian refugees from Kosovo and there was a great deal of concern in the west that "ethnic cleansing" would take place under their watch, at the hands of a group they were trying to protect. The reason the enclaves of Serbians in Kosovo remained was due to the intervention and protection of western troops. As for the public perception of what's right and wrong where the Serbs are concerned, I'm afraid after the Serbs' own violent actions in Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia, then in Kosovo, the Serbs are automatically seen as the bad guys. That may or may not be fair, but it is not CNN to blame for it, but the Serbs themselves. It's hard for observers in the west to believe that every other ethnic group in the former Yugoslavia is evil and violent and only the Serbs are good and kind, when the Serbs are involved in bloody ethnic conflict after conflict. On the contrary, it looks like the Serbs are racist monsters...

Excellent finds, krbe. I had been wondering how I could illustrate to the rest of the world the absurdity of the Russian media coverage. With that kind of insane propaganda, how can we believe anything Russia has to say about this conflict?

That's a tough one... While I agree wholeheartedly that issuing passports en-masse to people in the separatist enclaves is a major contributor to the instability and also a thinly-veiled excuse for Russia to intervene militarily to protect "its citizens," the people who live there did not have Georgian citizenship or passports. South Ossetia began fighting for independence before Georgia even became independent itself, so there was no point when they could have become Georgian citizens. By the time Abkhazia broke away a few years later, they would have formally been Georgian citizens, but few would have had passports since they were rare in Soviet times and weren't needed after the collapse of the Soviet Union to travel within the CIS. So... in effect they were "stateless persons," unable to travel outside the country because their travel documents were not issued by a recognized national government. Georgia would have happily issued passports to any who wanted and were physically able to apply for and receive them but nobody in the separatist areas wanted a document identifying them as a citizen of Georgia. That's how they should have stayed. If a group engages in ethnic cleansing and violently breaks away from the legitimate government of the country, resulting in the establishment of an unrecognized, illegal and effectively criminal no man's land, then there would have to be "inconveniences" for the population as a result. However, this is where Russia stepped in to provide passports and citizenship to them (and anyone who lived in the former Soviet Union who wanted it).