Over the last couple days, the Russian Duma met to talk about the issue of recognizing independence for the separatist regions of Transdniestr, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. RFE/RL reports,

Parliamentary leaders in Russia have called for the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Georgian breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and in the Moldovan separatist region of Transdniester.

The State Duma’s council, which comprises the leadership of the lower house of parliament, held hearings on the issue on March 13. The full Duma is expected to take up the issue next week.

Although the Duma leadership stopped short of recommending full-fledged recognition, the move has clearly raised the stakes in the ongoing struggle over the status of the three pro-Moscow separatist enclaves. It is unclear what form the new “missions” would take.

“I have proposed that the government examine the issue of opening Russian missions on the territory of these three unrecognized republics,” Aleksei Ostrovsky, head of the Duma’s Committee for CIS Affairs, told reporters after the hearings. “The Foreign Ministry is prepared to look into such a possibility. We also think it is necessary to change the form of economic and trade cooperation with these republics.”

Russian officials have long said that Kosovo’s declaration of independence — announced on February 19 — would set a precedent for other breakaway regions. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester have since argued that they, too, should be granted independence.

Moscow, however, needs to walk a fine line on the issue, since recognizing the three separatist republics could have repercussions in Russia’s own breakaway region, Chechnya.

The declaration of independence by Kosovo and its subsequent recognition by many, including the US, increased the volume of those, especially Russia, who have long said that the Kosovo issue could have consequences in these breakaway regions. (Last week, Russia withdrew from a treaty imposing sanctions on Abkhazia.)

The Tiraspol Times adds,

On Thursday, the Russian State Duma began special parliamentary hearings on the territorial conflicts pending in the area of the former Soviet Union. The hearings were prompted by appeals to Russia requesting recognition of the independence of the Republic of Abkhazia, the Republic of South Ossetia, and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR, although better known under the unofficial name Transdniestria).

Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovie have been running their own affairs since declaring independence in the early 1990s. They do not have international recognition and the United States and European Union oppose independence for them, for reasons which are no longer clear in the wake of American and EU support for recent Kosovo’s unilateral breakaway from Serbia.

Representatives from Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovie, located between Ukraine and Moldova, made appeals to Russian lawmakers in the hearing to recognize their independence.

They also said that a withdrawal of peacekeeping forces from the de facto independent republics could have disastrous consequences. In all three states, Russia supplies troops to help with peacekeeping duties within a multilateral format. In the case of Pridnestrovie, Russian servicemen outnumber those of Ukraine, but are a minority when compared to the number of peacekeepers provided to the joint taskforce by both Moldova and Pridnestrovie. The 56-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, is also part of the peacekeeping format in an overseer position.
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Pridnestrovie and the two other states, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are hoping for full and formal de jure diplomatic recognition of their current de facto independent status, similar to the recognition which the United States granted to the self-declared state of Kosovo, which unilaterally broke off from Serbia on 17 February 2008. However, over the issue of Kosovo, Russia has accused the U.S. of double standards for its refusal to use a similar approach to similar conflicts elsewhere, and some in the Duma are now fearful that Russian recognition of the three unrecognized countries nearer to Russia would prompt others to say that Russia, too, is guilty of a policy of double standards.