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

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 ink has hardly dried on Kosovo's independence declaration.  And already, reactions are flowing from frozen conflict zones in the former Soviet Union as if on cue.

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.

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.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

The current Russian military operation in Georgia marks the beginning of the end for Georgian sovereignty. The peace deal brokered by France contains the seeds of further chipping away at Georgian territory.

VITALY PORTNIKOV

The holding of “Sea Breeze” military exercises and Ukraine’s joining NATO should be regarded as two different processes. Some people want to unite them, but Kyiv has not applied for the NATO membership yet. Ukraine has not received the NATO Membership Action Plan and, apparently, will not recieve it in December.

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.

DMIRTY MEDOEV, VLADIMIR KHOMERIKI, MIKHAIL ALEKSANDROV

"After the recognition of Kosovo, South Ossetia’s position remains unchanged. When asked about our attitude to that precedent we have always answered that it is South Ossetia that can be a de jure precedent for Kosovo, not vice versa," Dmitry Medoev.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

Eurasian Home website with a kind permission of the Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., publishes the first chapter "Sovereignity from Within" of the book "Eurasia Rising: Democracy and Independence in the Post-Soviet Space" by the Eurasian Home website contributor Georgeta Pourchot.

SERGEI KARAGANOV

Сriticism towards Russia is not an attack, but a counterattack of a weakening West that defends its positions.

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.

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.

GHIA NODIA

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

GEORGETA POURCHOT

NATO’s most recent informal summit in Sophia underscores a decade and a half of balancing act between two former adversaries, the North Atlantic Alliance and Russia.

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.

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.

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.

There was a game we played when I was a child where you would run to the top of the nearest hill, sand dune or rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex (kids had more imagination in those days) and shout “I'm the King of the Castle and you're the dirty rascal.” These last words were said whilst pointing at the poor unfortunates who had failed to get to the top in time.

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.

If NATO can bring Ukrainians rule of law and a decent living standard, it would already have justified its expansion. But judging by the way other Western reforms have been perverted in Ukraine, one couldn’t be blamed for having serious doubts. Probably with more candidness, Mr. Yushchenko pointed out that Ukraine can join any international organization that it likes.

Despite the propaganda declarations that Russia has finally “risen from the knees” and “returned its status of a superpower”, the Kremlin’s foreign policy is still characterized by inconsistency and complete absence of strategic planning. True, there has been perceptible change since the 1990s – the Kremlin has become more independent in decision-making, the Russian elite are aware of the state interests.

The issue of whether Ukraine should join NATO has returned to the public agenda, sparking off heated debates between supporters and opponents of the country’s bid. In the past, such polemics have usually meant proponents of Euro-Atlantic unity coming under attack by pro-Russian factions in the run up to an important election or a NATO-sponsored military exercise on home soil.

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).