Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Raul Khadzhimba, president of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, signed a pact in Sochi establishing closer ties between Russia and Abkhazia. The agreement gives Russia more control over the region, which Moscow recognizes as an independent country, while extending to Abkhazians a streamlined path to Russian citizenship. It also pledges to modernize Abkhazia’s military in close cooperation with the existing Russian military presence there, and to integrate Abkhazia into the Eurasian Economic Union, Putin’s nascent alternative to the European Union. In combination with Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine earlier this year, […]