Georgia and Russia have agreed to an EU-sponsored peace plan to end five days of fierce fighting in Georgia that has killed at least several hundred people and left thousands homeless.

1,625 Georgian military servicemen are taking part in a large-scale international military training, alongside US forces, known as Immediate Response at the site of the fourth infantry brigade of Vaziani base.

Days before the NATO summit in Bucharest began, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili rolled out a new peace initiative for breakaway Abkhazia.

Setting aside growing tension on a number of issues, Putin and Bush appeared eager to end their presidential relationship on a high note.

Speaking today at NATO's summit in Bucharest, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance wants to welcome Ukraine and Georgia as members someday.

The foreign policy priorities of the presidential candidates. Most put Euro-Atlantic and NATO integration front and center, but good relations with Russia is, for some, another major consideration.

Georgia says it will move to formally ask Russian peacekeepers to leave the breakaway region of Abkhazia following reports that they seized and beat five Georgian police officers.

What Europe does want to do is to support democratic reforms in former Soviet states like Georgia and Ukraine, and push for change in autocracies like Belarus.

Far from offering the warm embrace shown Moscow by his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, the 52-year-old Sarkozy has been nothing short of blunt in expressing his views on Russia.

There are growing signs that the May 18 talks in Samara may not result in much progress. As has become the norm, there are no plans to issue a joint statement underlining areas of agreement, and the EU appears most concerned with minimizing potential damage.

Much was made during the French election that proves Nicolas Sarkozy to be an outspoken admirer of the United States. But most of his foreign policy intentions remain largely unknown.

Interview with Jaroslaw Walesa, the member of parliament of Poland.

The U.S. plans to deploy missile defense elements near Russia's borders was the subject of a recent telephone conversation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George Bush.

VLADIMIR CHIZHOV

The outcome of the extraordinary EU summit held on September 1 in Brussels was more or less predictable, both in terms of the views expressed by the EU member states and in terms of the EU Presidency conclusion.

ALEXANDER BORISENKO

ALEXANDER RONDELI

I do not think there is a relation between the UN Security Council meeting where the Russian fighter jets’ violations of the Georgian airspace were discussed and the withdrawal of the Russian railroad troops from Abkhazia.

VLADIMIR CHIZHOV

The summit in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk is the twenty first EU-Russia summit. The opening of negotiations on a new base agreement between Russia and the EU will be one of the main issues at the Khanty-Mansiysk summit.

EROSI KITSMARISHVILI

Currently, there are several negative points in the Russian-Georgian relations. The first one is Georgia’s bid for the NATO membership, the second one is Tbilisi’s conflict with the breakaway territories – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There are also the problems of the bilateral relations.

TEMUR IAKOBASHVILI

It is impossible to settle the conflicts, on which I am working, without Russia’s participation, especially today when the situation has become so strained that the so-called "frozen conflicts" have got "unfrozen".

KONSTANTIN ZATULIN, ALEXANDER KONOVALOV, TATYANA PARKHALINA, OLES DONIY, LEONID KOZHARA, IVAN ZAETS, ANDREW KUCHINS

"Why do the Central and Eastern European countries seek to join NATO? For many of them it is a way to join the EU. Many countries took this as institutionalization of independence from Moscow. For many countries it was a way to return to Europe," Tatyana Parkhalina.

STEPHEN BLANK

In advance of NATO’s Bucharest summit Russia has decided to employ the traditional Soviet tactics of intimidation and blackmail to block NATO’s enlargement.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

The Bucharest NATO summit offers a significant possibility that NATO’s and Russia’s positions on a variety of issues will further diverge, marking the beginning of the end of this uneven relationship.

GHIA NODIA

On July 24 Tbilisi hosted the first meeting of the State Committee on the status of South Ossetia. The Committee is intended to work out an approach to resolving the argument about South Ossetia’s status that would be acceptable both to Georgia and South Ossetia. 

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

The pending recognition of independence of the Serbian province Kosovo by the United Nations and attempts by Russia to apply the “Kosovo precedent” to the conflict zones in the post-Soviet space might reverberate negatively for Georgia.

VYACHESLAV IGRUNOV

One of the major issues directly concerning the relations between Russia and NATO is the Alliance’s enlargement and accession of new members, the former Soviet republics (Ukraine and Georgia) to the Alliance.

SERGEI ROGOV

Unfortunately, I have to state that the strategic partnership between Moscow and Washington has failed. The partnership exists in words only. And there are several reasons for that.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

Initially, the Georgian authorities under plausible pretexts had refrained from filing a suit against Russia. The action was brought to the ECHR only four days before the deadline, which indirectly shows that Tbilisi has been intensely examining that issue.

MERAB PACHULIA

Ambitions of the Georgian authorities to develop cooperation with NATO are largely supported by the population. There is a consensus on the benefits that the country could receive after acquiring membership of the Alliance, though contradictions remain.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

Members of the “National Forum” and some other opposition parties fear that Georgia may join NATO without Abkhazia and South Ossetia, thus losing those territories for good.

GHIA NODIA

Abkhazia, an unrecognized republic of Georgia, held December 6 a “national gathering” to express its will to gain independence.

VIKTOR MIRONENKO

VICTOR MIRONENKO

The relations between Russia and EU today are cooler than ever, they are in the state of limbo “between war and peace”. 

ALEKSANDR RAHR

The fact that the city of Tomsk is visited by one of the most important and largest German delegations emphasizes significance for Germany to develop the relations with Russia.

VASILY LIKHACHYOV

The main component in the agenda of the upcoming Russia-EU Summit would be the discussion of the four Road Maps.

SERGEI MARKEDONOV

The Georgian minister on conflict settlement, Giorgi Khaindrava, called the recent meeting between the leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a "statehood game." While Georgian officials continue to describe political developments in the breakaway republics in this way, Abkhazia is taking a number of very important political steps that may give its cause a boost.

FYODOR LUKYANOV

The Russian government’s refusal to invite the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania to celebrate a 750-year anniversary of Kaliningrad can be interpreted as Russia’s desire to show the new Europe that it has more important and influential friends in the EU. The leaders of Germany and France Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac were invited to the celebrations of Kaliningrad's 750th anniversary.

NIKOLAI KAVESHNIKOV

The future of the European Constitution is becoming increasingly gloomy after the referendum in the Netherlands. The Dutch refused to support the dreams and ambitions of politicians and chances for a repeat voting are minimal.

SERGEI MARKEDONOV

The Russian military presence in Georgia has become the key issue of the Caucasian Big Game in the last few months. Discussions of the timeframe and speed of their withdrawal from Georgia overshadowed the problems of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The typical criticism of the UK’s Foreign Office is the one eloquently expressed in John Le Carre’s The Constant Gardener - that they are pitiless practitioners of real-politik who care more about stability than idealism, and who only really work to protect the interests of British corporations, rather than British values. But on Russia, the Foreign Office seems to have erred on the other side.

By sending troops into Georgia earlier this month, the Kremlin has shown its willingness to use force to check the advance of the West into what it considers Russia's zone of influence. The pretext for the invasion, Georgia's military clampdown on its separatist region of South Ossetia, is irrelevant.

Georgia has resolutely condemned Russia’s actions in Chechnya. Russia has severely criticized NATO actions towards Serbia. Later on the Georgian authorities tried to do the same thing in South Ossetia as the Russian authorities had done in Chechnya. Moscow decided to treat Georgia in the same way as NATO had treated Serbia.

The Russian foreign policy boringly runs around in circles: the row with Estonia on the historic past, the squabbles between Moscow and Kyiv over the Crimea and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the confrontation with Georgia because of its breakaway republics etc. After having made a full circle we are back to square one - another conflict with Georgia.

The Georgian government has apparently been offering olive branches to the Russian government over the last two weeks, with the demotion of hawkish defence minister Irakli Okruashvili to the ministry of economy (he’s since resigned).