When Abkhazia’s self-styled president recently announced that Russia would build a naval base on its shores, alarm bells were sent ringing.
Experts said it not only meant that Russia would now have a second Black Sea fleet position but also signal a further occupation of the already contested territory.
Abkhazia is one of two self-proclaimed republics — the other is South Ossetia — that Russia helped to break away from Georgia in 2008.
Only a handful of countries recognise either as fully-fledged independent states: Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria, and a place called Nauru.
Few will have heard of Nauru, a tiny island thousands of miles away, just off the coast of Australia that has been mired in controversy for its links to Moscow.
Nauru is the world’s second smallest republic after Vatican City, often described as the “Pearl of the Pacific”, and for a time was one of the richest tiny isles.
It found its wealth in rich deposits of phosphate rock, a vital ingredient in globally used fertilizers, and was soon exporting the stuff far and wide.
But, by the time Russia launched an international campaign to galvanise support for the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, much of Nauru’s money had gone, believed to be due to poor investments and decision-making.
Under Vladimir Putin, what the Kremlin offered Nauru was a way out.
The island became only the fourth country to recognise the breakaway states as independent, and so bagged itself $10million (£6.3million) in Russian money.
Russian officials arrived on the island when Putin was Prime Minister to discuss how the “aid” package would be spent, and the money was soon allocated to critical work on Nauru’s port and aircraft.
Ever since, Nauru has backed Russia on the world stage, offering it crucial voting support at the United Nations (UN).
Juris Gulbis, Abkhazia’s ambassador to Asia-Pacific, summed up intentions in an interview with the Independent at the time when he said: “Although the war with Georgia has ended, we’re on a constant diplomatic battlefield.”
A key moment in the two countries history, Nauru and Russia’s ties go back further, the pair having celebrated 35 years of diplomatic ties in 2022.
Reports show that in 1998, $70billion (£56billion) was transferred from Russian banks to bank accounts chartered in Nauru.
The figure is astonishing and was at the time some 700 times higher than the country’s annual economic output.
Back then, Russian officials pinned the blame on criminals evading taxes, and according to Television New Zealand, this included members of the Russian mafia.
Despite this, officials in Nauru remained resolute that nothing of the sort was happening, and in 2000, then President René Harris said: “Nauru does not tolerate criminal activities in its financial system”.
Things became clearer in 2010 when the Washington Post reported a US government official as saying: “The central bank of Russia has come to us and confirmed that large amounts of Russian capital are flowing into and out of Nauru, and that has raised concerns on their part and on ours and certainly raised suspicions.”
Russia has tried a similar plan of attack of buying the support of the South Pacific, signalled in a string of visits Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov carried out in 2012, including to Fiji where he met Pacific Island nations.
Western nations have similarly attempted to buy support in the region. The US has for decades propped up small Pacific islands and networks of islands taken from Japan during World War 2 in exchange for diplomatic support, including Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.
