INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The de factor leader of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has announced that the territory will hold a referendum on joining
But can the vote actually go ahead and would the outcome change anything?Holding the vote will be complicated by the fact that the South
Ossetian leader, Anatoliy Bibilov, recently lost his bid for reelection and will no longer be president on that date
Meanwhile, neither his replacement nor Moscow have shown much enthusiasm in going ahead with the exercise.Bibilov announced the vote late on
May 13, first on his Telegram channel and then on his official website
going to be able to go through with the vote, or whether this will be yet another failed attempt by the tiny territory to attach itself to
maintained since Bibilov first announced the referendum during the election campaign: that in theory he is in favor of joining Russia, but
Ossetia that my actions connected with the unification referendum will be directed at observing international legal norms and consultations
the U.S.-funded RFE/RL reported
Whatever the intrigue within South Ossetia, the decision on whether or not South Ossetia joins Russia is going to be made in Moscow, as
happened in the analogous annexation of Crimea in 2014
And the signals from Moscow have not been strong
Senior Russian officials have yet to weigh in on the referendum, and Russian members of parliament have been giving mixed messages on the
South Ossetia as an independent state, as do a handful of Russian allies
Most of the rest of the world, meanwhile, still considers the region as part of Georgia, even after it unilaterally broke away from the
country during a war in the 1990s
Tbilisi has condemned the plans to hold the referendum; it considers the authorities in South Ossetia illegitimate and the territory to be
