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Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
GORI, Georgia '” The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward full-scale war on Saturday, as Russia sent warships to land ground troops in the disputed territory of Abkhazia and broadened its bombing campaign across Georgia.
The fighting that had sharply escalated when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that won de facto autonomy from Georgia in the early 1990s, appeared to be developing into the worst clashes between Russia and a foreign military since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Shortly before dawn on Sunday, Georgia's Interior Ministry said that Russian bombers had begun striking military facilities adjacent to the civilian airport at Tbilisi. The explosions could be heard in the city, said Shota Utiashvili, a ministry official.
He said that Russia had built up large forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia '” breakaway regions that have support from Moscow '” including as many as 300 artillery pieces in South Ossetia alone. Russian forces, he said, were also poised just over the border at Larsi, a checkpoint, where they could open a third line of ground attack.
As Russia moved more forces into the region and continued aerial bombing, it appeared determined to occupy both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said Russia's ambitions were even more extensive. He declared that Georgia was in a state of war, and said in an interview that Russia was planning to seize ports and an oil pipeline and to overthrow his government.
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia left the Olympics in China and arrived Saturday evening in Vladikavkaz, a city in southern Russia just over the border. State-controlled news broadcasts showed Mr. Putin meeting generals, suggesting that he was directly in charge of military operations, eclipsing the authority of President Dmitri A. Medvedev.
Mr. Putin said that dozens of people had been killed in South Ossetia and hundreds wounded, and tens of thousands were reported to be fleeing. Georgia's health minister said that more than 80 people had been killed, including 40 civilians who died in airstrikes in Gori, a city north of Tbilisi. Another Georgian official said at least 800 people, almost all of them civilians, had been injured. Each side's figures were impossible to confirm independently, as was an earlier claim released by South Ossetians and repeated by some Russian officials that 1,500 people had been killed in the territory.
The fighting, and the Kremlin's confidence in the face of Western outcry, had wide international implications, as both Russian and Georgian officials placed it squarely in the context of renewed cold war-style tensions and an East-West struggle for regional influence..
Western influence over Russia appeared minimal. The East and West were stuck in diplomatic impasse, even as reports of heavy civilian casualties indicated that the humanitarian toll was climbing. The United Nations Security Council was meeting Saturday to discuss the crisis, but with no resolution.
Georgian officials said their only way out of the conflict was for the United States to step in, but with American military intervention unlikely, they were hoping for the West to exert diplomatic pressure to stop the Russian attacks.
'Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected,' President Bush said at the Olympics in Beijing. 'We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.'
Senior European Union officials were adamant on Saturday that both Russia and Georgia were to blame for the recent escalation of the conflict, and that finger-pointing was counterproductive. Cristina Gallack, a spokeswoman Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said that the Union's immediate objective was to reach a cease-fire, and European envoys were reported to be en route to the region.
Other Western officials monitored the movements with alarm. 'The record is crystal clear,' said a Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'Russia has launched a full-scale military operation, on air, land and sea. We have entered a totally new realm '” politically, legally and diplomatically.'
Russia appeared to be opening a second front in Abkhazia, to the west of South Ossetia, and to be aiming to drive Georgian troops from the Kodori Gorge, a small mountainous area in Abkhazia that Georgia reclaimed by force in 2006. Georgian officials said 12 Russian jets were bombing the area, shortly after a Western official said United Nations peacekeepers had withdrawn from the area at the request of Abkhazia's de facto government.
Russia also notified Western governments that it was moving ships of its Black Sea fleet to Ochamchire, a port on the Abkhaz coast. Georgian officials said they expected Russian troops to land there.
Mr. Putin made clear that Russia now viewed Georgian claims over the breakaway regions to be invalid, and that Russia had no intention of withdrawing. 'There is almost no way we can imagine a return to the status quo,' he said in remarks on Russian state television.
Mr. Saakashivili, the Georgian president, said Russia's oil riches and desire to assert economic leverage over Europe and the West had emboldened Kremlin country to attack. Georgia is a transit country for oil and natural gas exports from the former Soviet Union that threatens Russia's near monopoly.
'They need control of energy routes,' Mr. Saakashvili said. 'They need sea ports. They need transportation infrastructure. And primarily, they want to get rid of us. '
In turn, Russian officials said that ties to the United States had emboldened Mr. Saakashvili, who wants to make Georgia part of NATO, into sparking the conflict. But there were signs that Mr. Saakashvili was feeling the limits of how much American help he could expect for his country's assistance in the war in Iraq.
Pentagon officials said late on Friday that Georgia had requested assistance in airlifting home the approximately 2,000 Georgian troops now in Iraq. The request was under review, and standard procedures would indicate that the United States government would honor the request, officials said.
Alexander Lomaya, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said conflict arose because Russia sought to 'thwart its neighbors' movement toward Western society and Western values' and framed the stakes in expansive terms that were reminiscent of the cold war.
'If the world is not able to stop Russia here, then Russian tanks and Russian paratroopers can appear in every European capital,' he said. Russian officials, however, blamed outside meddling for stoking the conflict, and said their goals were narrow.
President Medvedev said Russia was acting to restore peace and protect its citizens and peacekeeping troops who had come under Georgian attack.
In a news conference, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia said Georgian attacks on what he called 'Russian citizens' in South Ossetia 'amounted to ethnic cleansing.' He reserved some of his harshest language for Georgia's allies, referring at one point to 'Mr. Saakashvili and his Western friends' '” an apparent reference to the United States, which has provided Georgia with extensive military aid since Mr. Saakashvili took office in 2004.
With Russia's Black Sea fleet, warplanes and tanks bearing down on the small, mountainous country, Georgian officials acknowledged they were taken by surprise by the intensity of the Russian response.
But Russia, too, found itself facing resistance. Russia acknowledged that Georgian forces had shot down two Russian warplanes, while Mr. Lomaya said the Georgians had destroyed 10 Russian jets.
A close ally of Mr. Saakashvili's, Gigo Bokarianot, a Parliament member, said Georgia was shifting its tactics to focus on air defenses.In Gori, people cheered as a Russian pilot ejected from an airplane that was shot down. Georgian television later showed a pilot's bloody helmet and said a pilot had been captured.
Russian strategic bombers were seen over Georgia for the first time in the three-day conflict. Georgian tanks attacked the lone road linking South Ossetia to Russia, trying to cut off Russian supply routes. But Russia continued to flow forces into Georgia, and appeared on track to at least double the number of troops there. Georgian officials said at least 2,500 Russian troops were already in South Ossetia.
Along a military highway entering Georgia from Russia, military transports and armored vehicles were backed up for several miles. They were flying both Russian flags and plain red flags. The mood was buoyant.
'I am going to help our people,' said Zelimkhan Gagiev, 27, an irregular fighter in a maroon four-wheel drive who said he had family trapped in Tskhinvali. 'If I can, I'll fight to the death.'
The columns were headed to the Roki Tunnel, which gives access to South Ossetia.
Civilians came under fire on both sides. Georgian troops shelled the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, with artillery. Russian television footage showed damaged houses and apartment buildings.
Russian warplanes struck at least five Georgian cities. Witnesses said they struck a train station in Tsenakhi, five apartment buildings in Gori, and the Black Sea port of Poti.
Georgian officials said that Russian warplanes had attacked the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, operated by British Petroleum, that carries oil to the West from Asia, but that the pipeline had not been struck.
The Russian authorities said their forces had retaken the South Ossetian capital from Georgian control during the morning hours, while Georgian officials said they had withdrawn from the area voluntarily. But heavy fighting resumed there later Saturday, with Georgian tanks and heavy artillery attacking from the south, Russian television reported.
Twelve Russian troops were killed, according to Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a colonel general in the Ministry of Defense. When asked whether Russia was in a state of war with Georgia, General Nogovitsyn said it was not.
Roads were clogged with refugees, as South Ossetians fled north into Russia and Georgians from Gori fled southeast to Tblisi. Russia said 30,000 people had fled South Ossetia.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
'Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected,' President Bush said at the Olympics in Beijing. 'We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.'
What a dipshit. If he said that to Putin, I bet Putin laughed in his face. We are the last country that should be bitching to someone about bombing sovereign nations. Russia has the right to defend its territory. We'll be lucky if they don't send waves of ground troops into Ukraine as well as a defensive measure.
This Saakashvili dude fucked up. Thought he could start some shit with the bully on the block thinking the other bully already in two and about to be three fights would fly in and save the day. Sorry Saakashvili. 
We're frying fish in another region of the globe.
World leaders better take caution when dealing with this situation. That powder keg could ignite World War III in minutes.
We're just gonna have to sit back and give Russia carte blanche in the region. Bush should tell Putin that a certain line in Europe is the "trip wire" for nuclear war, and to not cross it.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
Speak of the devil......
MOSCOW, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of encouraging Georgia to carry out "ethnic cleansing" in the separatist region of South Ossetia by providing arms, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"The Ukrainian government, which has been enthusiastically arming Georgian troops from top to bottom, was in fact encouraging Georgia to attack and carry out ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia," the ministry said in a statement on its website www.mid.ru.
It added that ex-Soviet Ukraine had "no moral right to teach others how to do things." (Reporting by Tanya Ustinova, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman)
This is serious shit, folks.
We may be about to see Russia reform the Soviet Union by force.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
Bush's comment is hilarious. 
This however, is not a funny conflict. Bush damn well better not try to step into this one. If he does, our country is fucked. The Soviet Union being reformed is scary news as well. I wouldn't be suprised if Putin tried to take control again as well.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
Putin is in control. He isn't President, but he basically transferred all relevant power over to his Prime Minister position.
This isn't the time for the US to be mouthing off. I know Bush likes to play cowboy, but playing the cowboy role isn't gonna work here. Russia doesn't give in to US demands, and if we sent troops there, Bush will be shocked when the Russians don't roll over and wave white flags like troops did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Russia isn't afraid of us. They were basically willing to fight World War III during the Kosovo conflict when they sent troops in there to seize various airports and other facilities. Guess which airports and facilities we didn't bomb?
The only thing feasible to do at this point is like I said earlier....make it crystal clear that there is a certain line that cant be crossed under any circumstances. Other than that, we just have to sit back and let this happen.
I've said this for years, but this is why the US cant fight several quagmires at once. When a major crisis erupts, our hands are tied regardless of what happens. This spills over into Ukraine, and this becomes the biggest foreign policy crisis since Gulf War I.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
Georgian conflict spreads to other parts of country
TSKHINVALI, South Ossetia (CNN) -- Tskhinvali, the capital of the separatist Georgian province South Ossetia, lay in smoldering ruins Sunday after three days of fighting between Georgian troops and Russian forces.
A Georgian soldier sits atop a tank near the city of Tskhinvali.
A Georgian soldier sits atop a tank near the city of Tskhinvali.
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Russia's deputy foreign minister said at least 2,000 people, mostly South Ossetians who claim Russian citizenship, have been killed in Tskhinvali.
The fighting had spread well beyond South Ossetia, with Russian airstrikes on Georgian cities and with thousands of Russian troops in the breakaway province of Abkhazia.
The United States warned Sunday that "disproportionate" actions against Georgia could have a "significant long term impact on U.S.-Russian relations."
The foreign ministers of France and Finland were both expected to arrive in Tbilisi Sunday evening to talk with Georgia officials about peace efforts, a Georgia foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
President Bush on Sunday called French President and current EU head Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss the conflict, the White House said.
Both presidents "are on the exact same page," and emphasized the need for a cease-fire, disengagement, and respect for Georgia's territorial integrity, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.
Georgia began withdrawing its soldiers from Tskhinvali early Sunday, but Georgian troops remained south of the capital inside South Ossetia. Georgian troops and their tanks lined the road leading from Tskhinvali back to the positions they held before Thursday.
Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said the withdrawal was a show of goodwill, aimed at encouraging Russia to accept a cease-fire.
Heavy shelling from Russian artillery also prompted the pullback. Lomaia said about 200 Georgian soldiers have died so far in Russia attacks. Video Watch report on latest violence in Georgia »
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said talks could begin if Russian forces confirmed Georgia has completely withdrawn from South Ossetia and when Georgia signs a non-hostilities agreement.
The agreement, however, would have to include political changes for South Ossetia, Karasin said.
"They no longer believe they can live safely in the state of Georgia," said Karasin.
The fingerpointing over which side began the battle last Thursday intensified with Russia accusing Georgia of a genocidal plot to cleanse the region of ethnic Ossetians loyal to Russia.
Georgia accuses Russia of executing a long-planned war with the aim of taking control of the pipeline that carries Asian oil to Black Sea ports.
Russia's Black Sea Navy imposed a blockade on Georgia's coast, which it said was aimed at stopping shipments of military supplies into the country, according to Interfax, Russia's official news agency.
Urkaine, a former Soviet republic like Georgia, said it might prevent Russian navy ships involved in the blockade from returning to their bases in the Crimea, an spokeswoman with Urkaine's foreign ministry said.
"This statement is new to us and it requires analysis," said Russian Defense Ministry Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn. "It is a case of a third party intervening in the process, which is quite surprising."
Russia's Navy leases the bases from Ukraine through an agreement signed in 1997 which expires in 2017.
Russian soldiers in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia warned Georgian troops to move out of their way as they intend to advance into Georgia's western region, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Sunday.
The Russian forces plan to move into the city of Zugdidi, which is beyond the border of the breakaway province of Abkhazia, Utiashvili said.
White House Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Jeffrey said the United States was urgently looking into the report, saying that it would be a very serious escalation for Russia to move into Georgia beyond the Abkhazia region.
"We have made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations," Jeffrey, speaking to reporters in Beijing, China, on Sunday, said.
Russian forces launched an airstrike against a military airfield near the Tbilisi International Airport early Sunday, Georgian officials told CNN.
The attack near the Georgian capital city came after a day of intense fighting in the former Soviet republic, with dozens of Russian warplanes bombing civilian and military targets in Georgia on Saturday.
Some of Georgia's 2,000 troops who have been in Iraq returned to Georgia's capital on Sunday, Georgia's government said. Georgia has said it is pulling all of its troops from Iraq. U.S. military aircraft flew the troops back to Georgia, U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.
The situation in South Ossetia escalated rapidly from Thursday night, when Georgia said it launched an operation into the region after artillery fire from separatists killed 10 people, including peacekeepers and civilians. It accused Russia of backing the separatists.
Russian tanks began rolling into Georgia on Friday night.
President George Bush, speaking from Beijing where he is attending the Olympic Games, called Saturday for an immediate halt to the violence, a stand-down by all troops, and an end to the Russian bombings. He urged the sides to return to "the status quo of August the 6th."
Bush spoke Saturday evening to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Russian President Medvedev, a White House spokesman said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who spoke to Putin at the Olympic opening ceremonies, also called for both sides to stand down and for "the full respect of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
The United States, the European Union, and NATO are working toward a cease-fire, and the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors to discuss the issue Saturday.
Georgia, a pro-Western ally of the United States, is intent on asserting its authority over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both have strong Russian-backed separatist movements.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
Just saw on the news that Russia are forty miles from the capital. Russia have basically used this whole thing as an excuse to take over the whole of Georgia otherwise they would have stopped once they got what they needed. Now they're advancing on the capital city! I doubt there will be a formal reformation of the USSR but I mean it's basically what this is. They never left they just started operating differently. If Russia continue just about every country in the Western World will impose sanctions as will the UN and EU.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
What are sanctions going to do? Russia isn't Iraq. I find it strange how the media is trying to make Russia look at fault here while in reality it was Georgia that started it all.
That would be like Iran bombing our troops in Iraq, us retaliating, and the world blaming us for the conflict.
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
TBILISI (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush told Russia on Monday to end its armed conflict with Georgia after Moscow's forces advanced deeper into its pro-Western neighbor's territory, ignoring Western pleas to halt.
Bush said it appeared Moscow sought to overthrow the elected government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and warned a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of Russia's push into the smaller country would jeopardize relations with the West.
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," Bush said.
Moscow snubbed Western pleas for a ceasefire, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, taking a leading role in the crisis, criticized Washington for casting Georgians as the victims rather than aggressors in the conflict.
"The Cold War has long ended but the mentality of the Cold War has stayed firmly in the minds of several U.S. diplomats. It is a real shame," Putin said.
The fighting erupted on Thursday when Georgia sent forces to retake South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s and declared itself independent, albeit without international recognition.
Moscow, which supports South Ossetia's independence, responded by sending its troops into Georgia.
The conflict escalated quickly and, by Monday, Georgia appealed for international help and said its battered forces had retreated to defend its capital city, Tbilisi.
Shortly after Bush spoke, Saakashvili said Moscow should know Georgia will not quit.
"Georgia will never surrender," he said on CNN when asked what he would say to Russian officials if they were watching. "They should know Georgia will never surrender."
CEASEFIRE RESOLUTION
Georgia hosts a key oil pipeline supplying the West and the fighting has unsettled oil markets. It has alarmed investors in Russia and has raised fears of a wider conflagration in the volatile region bordering Iran, Turkey and Russia.
A feeling of uneasiness pervaded Tbilisi, as for the first time in four nights, city streets were largely empty, with no evening demonstration by the president's supporters.
Saakashvili said Russian forces had taken control of Georgia's main east-west route, effectively bisecting the country. He urged Georgians to stay home and not panic.
"We are working with an international community, but all we got so far are just words, statements, moral support, humanitarian aid," Saakashvili said in a televised address. "But we need more -- we want them to stop this barbaric aggressor."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was expected in Moscow and possibly Georgia on Tuesday for talks on behalf of the European Union, although it was unclear what could be achieved.
At the United Nations, France planned to present a resolution to the U.N. Security Council that would call for an immediate cease-fire.
Saakashvili said earlier he had agreed to a plan proposed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner under which hostilities would end, a mixed peacekeeping force would be deployed -- replacing the purely Russian one -- and troops would return to pre-conflict positions.
But a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said the outlook was "grim" and that Russia had planned its moves in Georgia for some time.
"This appears to be a full invasion of Georgia with an end result uncertain and an objective that is not clear but appears to be aggressive in nature," said the official. "Words like invasion should not be used lightly but this is an invasion."
In Georgia, an emergency session of parliament was called on Tuesday.
CONVOY HEADS FOR TBILISI
Russian officials have said they have no intention of occupying territory beyond South Ossetia and another separatist area, Abkhazia.
But Russian forces appear to have pushed farther into Georgia. Bush also said there was evidence Russian forces would soon begin bombing the civilian airport in the Georgian capital.
"If these reports are accurate, these Russian actions would represent a dramatic and brutal escalation of the conflict in Georgia," Bush said in Washington after returning from a trip to China for the Olympic Games.
Russia says 1,600 people have been killed in the fighting and thousands are homeless but these figures are not independently verifiable.
Women and children wept in the streets of Tskhinvali on Monday as they surveyed the destruction amid continued Georgian shelling. Russian troops distributed water and food from trucks.
Russia said it had lost four military aircraft and 18 soldiers since the fighting started, with another 14 missing in action and 52 wounded.
(Additional reporting by Tanya Mosolova and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow, Dmitry Solovyov in Buron, Denis Sinyakov in Tskhinvali, James Kilner in Tbilisi, Margarita Antidze in Gori, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, and the Washington bureau; writing by Kristin Roberts, editing by Philip Barbara)
Re: Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
But Russian forces appear to have pushed farther into Georgia. Bush also said there was evidence Russian forces would soon begin bombing the civilian airport in the Georgian capital.
Of course they're going to bomb the airport you fucking moron. Only reason we didn't bomb that airport in Baghdad is because US troops needed it. Other airports in Iraq had holes in the runways from US bombs.
Amazing that someone of his intellect served two terms as president.
"The Cold War has long ended but the mentality of the Cold War has stayed firmly in the minds of several U.S. diplomats. It is a real shame," Putin said.
Putin is right. We're acting like its 1968 instead of 2008. That's a dangerous mindset to have.
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," Bush said.
You don't decide what is unacceptable. Georgia invaded South Ossetia and the world isn't happy that Russia is fighting back and protecting Russian citizens. Of course Russia is going to advance because they don't want the same thing happening again.
Russia only enters conflicts when its own citizens or interests are at risk. You know, what the US used to do.
Women and children wept in the streets of Tskhinvali on Monday as they surveyed the destruction amid continued Georgian shelling. Russian troops distributed water and food from trucks.
This isn't possible. According to the US, Georgia is a country full of saints.:haha:
Saakashvili said Russian forces had taken control of Georgia's main east-west route, effectively bisecting the country. He urged Georgians to stay home and not panic.
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
Don't panic though.
