Back on topic: Situations like this are never as simple and clear cut. People who call themselves Ossetians are quasi-autononomous and their boundary is divided into North and South Ossetia which straddles Russia and Georgia. Ossetians have been grumbling that Georgians have been killing their people for a long time. South Ossetia was ruled by an ex-wrestler despot who seems to have disappeared, and apparently, the place with rife with drug money inter alia. If we are to believe the media, Ukrainians and Estonians are now fearing the Bear is on the rampage again. I’m not so sure how that fits into theories of a spread of post-communist/state capitalism? Even views that Russia is flexing it’s muscles seems a little like cold war rhetoric to me, and doesn’t give them much credit for their geo-political gamemanship.
