Moscow must have known about South Ossetia's reputation as a money pit when it took the separatist territory under its military and financial wing after the 2008 war with Georgia. But the Kremlin may not have expected that it would be quite such a high-maintenance place that some $27.3 million can just go up in smoke.
Eight hundred million rubles -- part of the aid dished out by Moscow for post-war rehabilitation -- simply has disappeared, South Ossetia’s de-facto state auditors said last week. The who, where, when, why and how remain unknown. While eyes popped in Russia, South Ossetia’s de-facto official news agency reported the epic steal as casually as if a ballpoint pen had gone missing.
The figure, though, just goes to show that being South Ossetia's sugar daddy is one pricey business. Apart from funneling millions into the breakaway region, Moscow keeps thousands of troops there and is allegedly busy offering financial inducements to various countries for their recognition of South Ossetia’s sovereignty.
Whether a culprit will ever be found for Russia's missing millions, however, remains anybody's guess.
Gennady Ryabchenko, the de-facto official tasked to audit the breakaway territory's public finances, charged that prosecutors failed to act on reports of embezzlement. The de-facto Security Council requested the region’s tiny 34-seat parliament to probe into what's been going on exactly in the prosecutor's office.
The announcement came, though, just over a week before the region's third try, on March 25, at de-facto elections of a de-facto president. Some observers see it as a sign of the struggle to get rid of ex-strongman Eduard Kokoity’s remaining entourage; chief among them, de-facto General Prosecutor Teymuraz Khugayev.
Granted, it's been tried before. Opposition candidate Alla Jioyeva tried to push the prosecutor out of office, but ended up in hospital herself.
In response to pressure from de-facto presidential candidates, Vadim Brovtsev, the interim head of South Ossetia's de-facto government, for a second time has requested legislators to relieve the prosecutor of his duties.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.