Putin’s tactics haven’t changed. In Januray 2005, the pipeline through which Georgia was getting Russian gas and the main power line were blown up by “unknown terrorists” in a few places. Georgia ended up with no heating and power in the middle of winter, which happened to be severely cold that year. As a result of this subversion, Russia received the exact opposite result from what Putin was likely expecting. We rebuilt all of our energy system and very quickly stopped depending on our “unreliable” neighbor. We gained our proper independence by eliminating the corruption that was killing the energy sector, increasing our own capacities, and switching to more reliable suppliers