A few hundred miles from the Moscow-backed offensives in eastern Ukraine, a quieter Russian expansionist project is taking shape in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On Jan. 23, the Russian Duma ratified what it called a “Treaty on Alliance and Strategic Partnership” with Abkhazia, further extending and codifying Russian suzerainty over the balmy, subtropical republic on the Black Sea. In nearby South Ossetia, a rump highlands statelet of less than 40,000 people, its de facto president has promised an even more comprehensive treaty with Moscow likely to be signed later this month. The reaction from Tbilisi […]