G8 is a functional tool to coordinate our economic policies. Membership is not a reward we bestow in friendship, or a prize.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/08/the-mysterious.html

The western media are pushing for a financial angle that simply isn’t there. Like the S&P the MICEX is dropping since May and that has little to do with Georgia and very much with commodity prices (MICEX is 50% oil + 20% metal …) and a temporary US$ strength.

I took the FT apart on that yesterday.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/08/the-financial-t.html

According to point 6 of the ceasefire agreement Russia can implement additional security measures.

Here is how AFP put it:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU0z8n94gB9tlTOp-GGBxH7vSjZA

The deal obliges all forces in Georgia, a former Soviet republic, to withdraw to positions held prior to the Russian invasion.

However, Russian troops — which routed Georgia’s small US-trained army in the fighting for control of South Ossetia — have the right to patrol “a few kilometres” deeper inside Georgia beyond the South Ossetia conflict zone, Georgian and French officials said Saturday.

This allowance was stipulated in a confidential letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to his Georgian counterpart shown to AFP here by a high-level Georgian source and later released in Paris by the Elysee Palace.

The Russians will make sure that no heavy weapon will be imported through the port Pori and will take care that no artillery gets near South Ossetia.

Those are sensible measures when one reminds that it was a Georgian artillery barrage on a sleeping town that started the big mess.

I doubt that the Russians will go for independence of the small statelets. It would a bad example for other folks in their federation. They will keep them hanging or just simply incorporate them.

The six point ceasefire is here:
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/104/article_1331.asp

Georgia is less of a problem than the Abkhaz or South Ossetian people accepting this.