Pro-Putin Party Leader Meets Bagapsh, Kokoity

Bois Gryzlov, the chairman of both the United Russia party and the Russian state Duma (lower house of Parliament) met the secessionist leaders of Abkhazia, Sergey Bagapsh, and South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, on 18 February, United Russia reports .

The meeting was reportedly held at the request of Bagapsh and Kokoity, to discuss the implications of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. “Boris Gryzlov stressed that recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create all the necessary pre-conditions for a new kind of relationship between the Russian Federation and self-declared independent states, especially in the post-Soviet space,” the official report reads.

United Russia holds a majority in the Russian parliament and is backing the election of Dmitriy Medvedev – President Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor.