Thursday, August 16, 2007  Yeltsin: Selling out Russia  Now it
is official what everyone in the business has known for the last
15 years. Back in 1991, Boris Yeltsin offered Finland to buy
back Karelia - lost to the Soviet Union in WW II. This public
secret has now been "revealed" by Finnish paper Kainuun Sanomat,
which breaks a silent understanding in Finnish establishment of
suppressing public debate on relations with Russia.  In late
December 1991, the Soviet Union awaited its final dissolution.
Earlier in the month, the Belovezha agreement had effectively
torpedoed the USSR, and republic after republic ceded from the
Union. On 25 December, president Gorbachev resigned, and by New
Year the red flag was lowered from the pinnacles of the Kremlin.
In its place, the Russian tricolor was hoisted, signalling a
Russia of uncertainty. As a new nation, Russia was in dire need
of recognition as a sovereign and successor state of the Soviet
Union. Furthermore, its economy was in free fall, with food
shortages and an