Russia's state-owned gas companies shut off natural gas supplies to Georgia for several days in January. Georgia has had chronic energy shortages since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is wholly dependent on Russia for gas.

The government of Georgia, headed by President Eduard Shevardnadze, is in negotiations with Moscow on the timing of the departure of Russian troops. Two of Russia's four bases there are scheduled to be closed by July, but Moscow is pressing for a 15-year extension on closing any of them. Georgia is situated between Russia and Turkey, a NATO member, and has access to the Black Sea.

Last year Russia imposed a travel visa requirement on Georgians. Russian officials also accused Georgia of supporting rebels fighting Russian military occupation of the republic of Chechnya, Georgia's neighbor. Russia has an estimated 80,000 troops in Chechnya, and has carried out a 16-month war against Chechen separatist guerrillas. This follows a Russian offensive in 1994–96 that devastated the country. In recent weeks Putin has announced plans to withdraw some troops from the country.

In relations with Ukraine, the largest post-Soviet state after Russia, Moscow is seeking to convert Ukraine's $2.2 billion gas debt into shares in Ukrainian state enterprises, particularly the gas pipeline system used to transport Russian gas to European customers.

In a January agreement, Ukraine signed a military pact with Russia that reportedly includes Russia in planning any foreign military exercises in Ukraine. The two countries also agreed to form a joint naval unit and increase production of weapons.

In recent years the U.S. and Western European rulers have made efforts to draw Ukraine into collaboration with their military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Financial Times sees the Russia-Ukraine accord as "drastically increasing the integration of their respective militaries, and putting Ukraine's previously close cooperation with NATO into question."

In other developments, Russia halted plans to remove troops from Moldova last year, speeded up unity talks with Belarus, and created what the Financial Times termed a "Eurasian NATO" with several central Asian states.

The Russian government has repeatedly voiced its opposition to major, long-term policy moves by Washington, including the expansion of NATO eastward toward the Russian border and its drive to set up a system capable of shooting down missiles. This planned move not only violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed between Moscow and Washington but threatens to give U.S. imperialism a first-strike nuclear capability. The ruling layers in Russia are also pressing to ensure that they, rather than imperialist interests, control the resources of the region.

For example, Washington is critical of Russian agreements with Kazakhstan, where a petroleum pipeline from the republic's Tengiz oilfield to Russia's port on the Black Sea is near completion. A January 26 Wall Street Journal article entitled "Gunboat Diplomacy in the Caspian" reported that Moscow "now stands to reap a multibillion dollar bonanza in annual transit income and--even more importantly--to gain potential leverage on producer and consumer countries." The article complained that the pipeline's successful completion was a result of the efforts of Chevron and ExxonMobil, which participated in a consortium that "rescued the oilfield and the pipeline from Russian failures and turned them into impressive successes of Western technology," only to be used for the benefit of Russia.

The U.S. oil interests are watching developments in Kazakhstan with concern, the article explained, since "preliminary estimates" indicate that the offshore oil field Kashagan "may well be the richest offshore oilfield discovered anywhere in the world in recent years, potentially matching the North Sea's oil reserves and boosting the overall commercial prospects of the Caspian oil basin."

The article concludes that the "only sensible solution" would be a pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast. But Russia's success in building influence in the region stands in the way of this plan, as does its show of military strength during Putin's January 9–10 visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, when Russia's Caspian flotilla carried out exercises with live ammunition and then laid anchor in front of Baku.

In a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russian deputy foreign minister Yevgeny Gusarov said that Russia has been telling its "western partners" that it opposes the use of the OSCE for interference in the internal affairs of countries "to the east of Vienna." Gusarov said, "This time we are sending a clear signal: we won't allow this to happen."

The Financial Times noted that under the Clinton administration, "the U.S. pursued a policy of containing Russian and Iranian influence in the Caspian region, principally by supporting alternative energy routes through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey." Any moves that challenge this process are viewed as a threat by the U.S. rulers. The New York Times reported January 7 that "an executive with a major Western energy company in the region said the Russian gambits underlined the necessity of ensuring that Caspian Sea oil and gas flow to the West through pipelines that bypass Russia."

A scare around Russian nuclear weapons was raised in early January by the Washington Post, which published an article alleging that Russian ships were transporting short-range nuclear-tipped missiles to the Russian naval base in the Kaliningrad enclave between Lithuania and Poland. Russian naval officials denied the charge. Poland, along with Hungary and the Czech Republic, were admitted to NATO in 1999.
 
 
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