More than twenty years after the collapse of the USSR, a number of frozen conflicts dating from the collapse persist to this day. They endure as hostages to geostrategic thinking, and are fueled by ethnic and identity contestation on the ground. Pilar Bonet, Chief Correspondent, Moscow, El Pais, former Title VIII-supported Research Scholar and Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar has covered many of these conflicts, and will concentrate her discussion on the cases of Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.