The Bug Pit
Reading through the transcript of the press conference during this week's visit by Michael McFaul (President Obama's director of Russian and Central Asian affairs at the National Security Council) to Kyrgyzstan, it's impossible not to get the sense that the U.S. is now on the defensive there.
It's an interesting time for the CSTO, with the president of Belarus criticizing it for not taking action in the recent unrest in Kyrgyzstan, and questions about the base for the rapid-reaction force base Russia had apparently wanted to build for the CSTO in southern Kyrgyzstan.
It's the day before the big Victory Day parade in Moscow, honoring the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II. For the first time, the parade will include representatives from allied militaries, including the U.S., Britain and France but also several from our area of the world, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. (Not, you'll notice, Georgia or Uzbekistan.)
When we first wrote about the recent purge of the Abkhaz military, the initial analysis was that it was a Kremlin-originated move, designed to gut the Abkhaz military in preparation for the full Russian takeover there.
Plenty of food for thought here, from the Washington Post's Spy Talk blog, via Intelligence Online:
[A] top Chinese general recently made an offer to Afghan President Hamid [Karzai] to train his army and security services “after NATO’s withdrawal.”
Deep in this story about the alleged polygamy of deposed Kyrgyzstan president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, is an intriguing detail:
4/30/2010 - Transit Center at Manas Airmen honored five fallen Kyrgyz men in a ceremony in TokMok, Kyrgyzstan, April 29, 2010.
Mass turnover in Abkhaz military raises questions about Russian involvement
So what is up with several of Abkhazia's top military brass retiring all at once? According to the official news agency Apsnypress, via BBC Monitoring: