Ukraine signed an accord with Russia and the European Union on monitoring transit gas through its territory, setting the stage for the resumption of supplies to Europe after four days of disruption amid freezing temperatures.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who represents the EU, secured the agreement of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko in Kiev, after talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday at his residence outside Moscow.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The recent Russian naval visits to Cuba and Venezuela may be linked to August’s Georgia war, said a U.S. diplomat Monday, though he said Washington was watching for the next Kremlin moves before taking a firm view.
On a first visit to Moscow that he linked to Russia’s growing interest in South and Central America, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said Russia may be considering a security presence there and warned of a regional arms race.

WASHINGTON – Russian warships have been plying the waters off Venezuela and Panama in recent weeks and are now heading for Cuba, but U.S. officials are not so much wringing their hands as yawning.
Asked about a Russian warship transiting the Panama Canal earlier this month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — who saw the ship while crossing the canal last week — told The Associated Press: “I guess they’re on R&R. It’s fine.”
The Pentagon, while puzzled by the Russians’ actions, also is taking a ho-hum attitude. The U.S. military commander …

TBILISI (Reuters) – President Mikheil Saakashvili on Friday mounted a fresh defense of Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia in August, denying accusations Tbilisi had been the aggressor in the disastrous war with Russia that ensued.
Under fire from opponents who say he walked into a war Georgia could not possibly win, Saakashvili defended his actions of the night of August 7 during televised testimony before a bipartisan parliamentary commission probing the war.

GENEVA (AP) — Mediators succeeded Wednesday in getting direct talks going between Russia and Georgia, pressing the two neighbors to resolve security and refugee issues from their August war in the troubled Caucasus.
In all, eight parties met behind closed doors at the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva for the one-day talks and agreed to meet again next month, EU representative Pierre Morel said.

An independent report on the war between Russia and Georgia in August, is calling for an investigation into the conduct of all parties during the hostilities. The London-based human rights organization, Amnesty International, says it is concerned serious rights violations took place at the time.
Amnesty says all sides in the August conflict may have committed abuses. In its new report, Amnesty says Georgian and Russian forces and militia fighters in the breakaway South Ossetia region should be investigated for war crimes during the conflict.

The secretary-general of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, recently announced the planned formation of an international force in Central Asia that “should be prepared to repel any threat.”
On November 9, after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted an agreement on the expected 5,000-strong force to the State Duma for approval, Bordyuzha said that the force is to be formed immediately upon the agreement’s ratification by all participating states.

For Giorgi Kapanadze, the fighting in South Ossetia began days before the world even noticed that a war was going on.
Pro-Moscow separatist forces had been shelling his hometown of Avnevi, an ethnic-Georgian village inside the breakaway region, pretty much nonstop since the beginning of August until Georgian troops entered the enclave around midnight on August 7-8.

European and Russian leaders sought common ground on Friday on tackling the global financial crisis despite divisions over Georgia and European concerns about security and energy supplies from Russia.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, heading the EU side at a one-day summit in the French resort of Nice, and Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev will then fly directly to Washington to join the G20 meeting of top economies on the crisis.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is concerned about Russia’s threat to deploy missiles near Poland and wants a summit on European security.
“We really must move forward… to remove sources of friction,” Mr Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.