The Snow Leopard, in this case, signifies South Ossetia, about which Joshua Kucera writes in Slate’s feature called Dispatches: Notes From Different Corners of the World. So far, Kucera has posted four installments in a series on the former Soviet Union, and they prove a really fascinating glimpse into the world of shoddy spies, propaganda and other facets of life in South Ossetia, Azerbaijan and beyond.
En route to London last week for international meetings re: Kosovo and the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice addressed Russia’s recent announcement that it will send additional peacekeeping troops to Georgia. Amid already tense relations between the two countries over Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s desired independence (from Georgia), Rice said the deployments don’t seem to violate specific peacekeeping agreements, but are “not militarily necessary.”
Essentially, as Russia does its best to stand in the way of most everything Georgia wishes to accomplish, the West is asking Russia to respect Georgia’s sovereignty.
Said Rice (in a Voice of America story):
“What the Russians are doing is part of a peacekeeping mission that they’re involved in. But given the tensions between Russia and Georgia, it would certainly be helpful if Russia and Georgia maintained direct contact. They have from time to time. This is not a time to excite the environment, and so we were very concerned about the movement of those forces. I’ve talked to both Georgians and Russians to say: let’s not let any of this get out of hand.”