Thomas de Waal is a research associate with the non-governmental organisation Conciliation Resources. He was Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. He is co-author of Chechnya: calamity in the Caucasus (New York, 1998) and author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war (New York, 2003); his next book is about the south Caucasus

Recent articles

The documented history of the cosmopolitan Black Sea territory of Abkhazia was destroyed in war on 22 October 1992. Its Greek archivist is conserving what little remains, reports Thomas de Waal.

(This article was first published on 20 October 2006) 

The career and testimony of a man who served both the Soviet Union and independent Georgia remain a guide to how embittered neighbours might repair their relationship, says Thomas de Waal.

The political tensions of the Caucasus are reflected on the ground in a range of obstacles - from roadblocks and closed markets to polarised attitudes. It is time for a larger vision for the region that can provide hope of inclusive progress, writes Thomas de Waal.

A neglected east-central European dispute involving a breakaway statelet, regional rivalry, contested territory, black markets and bearish presidents seems to have all the ingredients of a Caucasus-Balkans bloodbath. But seen close, Moldova-Transdniestria dissolves such preconceptions, finds Thomas de Waal.

Georgia and Russia have stumbled into a war that need not have happened. The price of their political calculation - and folly - is being paid by civilians on both sides, says Thomas de Waal.