"If European countries continue carrying out [Washington's] policies, we will have to talk to Washington about European matters," Vladimir Putin, Interview with Germany's ARD television, Aug. 29, 2008, Reported by RIA Novosti, August 30, 2008.

Annals of Diplomacy

Putin Offers Bush Another Triumph For His Presidential Legacy

September 4, 2008

The appended article on two Estonian farms declaring their independence and seeking Russian recognition, along with a lot more serious ones, appeared on RIA Novosti's website yesterday. However, they discreetly did not report the following conversation which took place between Bush and Putin at an undisclosed location in northeast Estonia. In view of McCain's vice-presidential problems, this conversation takes on added significance, which Bush obviously didn't fail to pick up on.

"Here's the deal George: You give us those two farms in Estonia and we promise not to recognize Alaskan independence. Get the picture?"

OTTO

LINK to original.

Two Estonian farms establish 'Soviet republic,' seek recognition

03/09/2008 16:26

ST. PETERSBURG, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Two farms in north-east Estonia have joined forces to declare an independent "Soviet republic" and intend to seek Russia's recognition, a Russian communist organization said on Wednesday.

"We no longer want to live in bourgeois Estonia, where nobody cares about the common people...with raging unemployment and corruption, and where everything depends on NATO and the Americans," Russian communists from St Petersburg, who are assisting the 'republic,' quoted its founder, Andres Tamm, as saying.

Residents and founders of the 'Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic' have already formed a national 'Soviet government,' a police force, and have begun demarcating the state's borders.

Meanwhile, residents of the republic claim that the "bourgeois" Estonian government has sent a "squad of relatives of Estonian Nazi SS veterans" to regain control over the breakaway territory.

The republic is currently drafting a treaty of friendship with Russia to be submitted to the Russian president in the next few days.

Estonia is a former Soviet republic and a current member of both NATO and the EU.