Published: August 25 2008 19:54 | Last updated: August 26 2008 09:19 Russia has produced some of the world’s top chess players – and its invasion of Georgia is a brutally effective gambit in the new Great Game. It has prompted the fastest investor pull-out in a decade, but Moscow may care little about that. Longer-term strategic goals have been achieved. In one move, Moscow has reasserted its influence over energy supply routes, and suppliers, from the Caspian basin and Central Asia. Russia has re-established a hold over the narrow strategic corridor of the southern Caucasus. If, as is still possible, Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili is deposed and replaced by a more pro-Russian candidate, its control will be cemented. Georgia alleges (though Moscow denies) that during the conflict Russia attempted to bomb the 1m barrels-a-day Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline – the only important export route for Caspian oil bypassing Russia. Russia’s ability and willingness to wage war close to the BTC will make companies, lenders and investors think hard about backing new pipelines through the region. Nabucco, the gas pipeline plan championed by the European Union, could well lose out to Russia’s rival South Stream.Russia’s grip on energy
Wednesday 27 August 2008
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