Georgia has been trying to get Russian military bases out for a while now, but it seems as if the situation may get worse:

After a two-year interruption and ten years of futile talks, another round of Russian-Georgian negotiations on the withdrawal of Russian troops was held in vain on February 10-11 in Tbilisi. The Russian side advanced conditions that amount to a refusal to withdraw its troops from Georgia. The conditions have grown in number and in brazenness, compared to what Moscow had demanded at the preceding rounds of negotiations. The escalation of conditions is probably also designed and timed to dissuade U.S. President George W. Bush from raising this issue with due emphasis at his upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a curtain raiser to the Tbilisi negotiating round, Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Valery Loshchinin declared that the Russian troops’ withdrawal from Georgia and accommodation in Russia would cost “hundreds of millions of dollars, and altogether it would cost more than a billion dollars” (Vremya novosti, February 10). In previous years Moscow had demanded $200-300 million dollars, a preposterous sum for the approximately 5,000 Russian troops based in Batumi, Akhalkalaki, and Tbilisi. (Russian “peacekeepers” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not covered by these negotiations.) Moscow supposedly expects the West to pay those sums, knowing full well that the United States and other Western countries are only prepared to defray the real cost, which amounts to a small fraction of Russia’s claim.

Read the rest. Nathan has his own comments. And here’s mine, short and simple: Georgia needs to focus on becoming a partner with Russia, not its pawn. Georgia can’t have a stable, democratic government if it must constantly wield to Russian military dominance.