The Bug Pit
Georgians wanted Russian soldiers to "take" then-president Mikheil Saakashvili during the 2008 war over South Ossetia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
Russia's newly signed, massive bailout deal for Ukraine includes measures strengthening the position of Russia's Black Sea Fleet based in Ukraine.
A sale of Turkish howitzers to Azerbaijan seems to be back on after the German company that made the weapon's engine blocked the sale because of restrictions related to its frozen conflict with Armenia.
Khorog, the city in eastern Tajikistan which saw fighting last summer between residents and security forces from the central government, has again become the site of tension, highlighting the mistrust that locals and Dushanbe still have for one another.
A delegation from Uzbekistan visited Washington this week as the two countries try to figure out how the impending withdrawal from Afghanistan is going to affect their relationship. The content of the discussions, part of the annual high-level talks that the U.S. has with every Central Asian country, were kept very quiet, but no doubt focused heavily on security issues.
Russia's assessment of the prospects for a smooth transition in Afghanistan are dim -- and getting worse, the country's ambassador to Tajikistan said.
While the U.S. has suspended its military transportation across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, that does not have any effect on traffic through Central Asia, a Pentagon spokesperson has told The Bug Pit.
Armenians may have been troubled by Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to their country, as it seemed to be an exhibition of Russia's tightening grip on Yerevan's foreign policy. But in Azerbaijan, the visit occasioned a different sort of fear: that Putin was confirming Russia's military support for Armenia in a potential conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh.
At this week's NATO foreign ministerial meetings in Brussels, the alliance's secretary general had effusive praise for aspiring member Georgia. Praising recent "free, fair and inclusive" elections, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that "Georgia serves as a model for the wider region." And in his mostly widely quoted comments, he said that "In the five years since we created the NATO-Georgia Commission, Georgia has moved closer to NATO."