Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

[RSNATION]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russians are claiming to have shot down another Georgian (Israeli) UAV Tuesday night.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080813/116017256.html

Russian troops down Georgian drone over S. Ossetia
19:46 | 13/ 08/ 2008

MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian peacekeepers shot down a Georgian unmanned reconnaissance plane over the capital of breakaway South Ossetia on Wednesday, a Defense Ministry official said.

"Despite Georgia's assurances that it would end military action, a Georgian unmanned drone was detected over Tskhinvali on Wednesday. ... Russian peacekeepers shot it down," the official said.

The spokesman said the drone was downed around 17:30 [13:30 GMT] and was the second reconnaissance aircraft to be shot down over the region since last night.

At least eight flights by reconnaissance drones over the separatist republic were reported by Russian peacekeepers last Thursday, a day before Georgia launched its devastating military offensive on South Ossetia August 8.

[RSNATION]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

For our amusement

Quotes by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili
13 Aug 2008 14:25:34 GMT


Source: Reuters
Aug 13 (Reuters) - Following are some of the various statements made on Wednesday by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili:
TO CBS TELEVISION
"In Georgia's far region of South Ossetia... Russian tanks are going through villages inhabited by the Georgian population and throwing people out of the houses, pushing people into concentration camps that they are setting up in those villages and separating men and women and doing worse kind of atrocities I've heard of since the Balkans or the war in Chechnya." "...Several hundred kilometres or miles removed from south Ossetia, where (villages) are again inhabited by Georgians, they are throwing out every single Georgian man or woman and children."
"...They moved into the town of Gori and they ransacked the town, looted the town. These are regular Russian troops, they go into houses, they destroy houses, there is all this documentary footage around that can prove it....they are taking things like furniture, toilet seats, killing people, terrorising people."
He compared the situation with the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and appeasement.
"This is freedom in general at stake. This is not about some far away remote country about which we know little."
TO CNN TELEVISION
Saakashvili lashed out at a suggestion that Georgia started the conflict by entering South Ossetia last week.
"I'm sickened, sickened of this cynical and absolutely unfounded allegation."
"We only responded after 150 Russian tanks moved into Georgian territory and started open aggression."
"You know what? Germany told the world they were attacked by Poland in 1939. The Soviet Union was attacked by Finland in 1939. Soviet Union was attacked by Afghanistan in 1979."
"Didn't the world learn enough? I am really sickened that there are people in the West asking these questions because that's exactly what the Russians want. It's our territory for God's sake. They're killing our people."
ON THE CEASEFIRE
"The Russians never meant any ceasefire. This is a kind of ceasefire that I don't know they had with Afghanistan in 1979 or that Germany had with Poland in 1939. There is no ceasefire. They are moving."
ON WASHINGTON REACTION
"Frankly, some of the first statements from Washington were perceived by the Russians almost as a green light for doing this because they were too soft."
"Everything the Americans had achieved from the Cold War is being undermined and destroyed right now."
"America is losing the whole region."
"I know America is overstretched. I know there are many other things. But realise what we are heading toward now. Russians have been very brutal, very deliberate, and they been showing everybody, 'We don't give a damn.'"
(He said Russian bombs bear inscriptions that say "This is for President Bush, this is for the United States, this is for NATO").
"They are by proxy trying to fight war with the West."
ON PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MCCAIN COMMENTS
"Yesterday I heard Senator McCain say we are all Georgians. Well very nice ... but of course it's time to pass from words to deeds."

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

To tell you the truth, I find that Saakashvili has actually conducted very well propoganda. The man is on the media 24/7, always giving interviews and always yapping about Russian this Russian that. It's one thing that the Georgians have done right.

RussiaToday has an article on the issue http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/28918

It just highlites how important it is to dominate the media with a face that becomes familiar and with fluent English.

[North Pole]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

August 13, 2008
Wednesday

Dmitry Medvedev has declared August 13 a day of mourning for the humanitarian disaster in South Ossetia.

The President signed a decree ‘On Declaring a Day of Mourning for the Humanitarian Disaster in South Ossetia’.

The document notes that Georgian forces, in violation of the peace agreements in place in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone and the UN Charter, and with the sanction of the Georgian leadership, illegally invaded and attempted to seize South Ossetian territory on August 8, 2008, using aviation, heavy artillery and guns and killing the local population. This act constitutes genocide against the South Ossetian people. The city of Tskhinvali and other towns have been practically destroyed, creating a humanitarian disaster in South Ossetia.

Furthermore, an armed attack was launched against a Russian Armed Forces contingent stationed in the region in accordance with international agreements for normalising the situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, which constitutes an act of aggression under the terms of the UN General Assembly’s resolution of December 14, 1974.

As a result of these actions numerous civilians in South Ossetia have been killed and members of the Russian Armed Forces peacekeeping contingent in the region have also lost their lives.

The President expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and declared August 13, 2008 a day of mourning in the Russian Federation.


Source: http://kremlin.ru/eng/sdocs/themes.shtml#205242

Moscow says some 70 Russian soldiers killed in S.Ossetia

13/ 08/ 2008

MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - A top Russian military official said on Wednesday that 74 Russian military personnel died during recent fighting with Georgian troops in breakaway South Ossetia.

"At least 74 servicemen were killed, 171 were wounded and 19 are missing in action as of Wednesday morning," said Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the General Staff.

Wednesday was declared a day of mourning in Russia.

Russian officials earlier said about 1,600 civilians were killed and more than 30,000 have fled South Ossetia since Georgia attempted to regain control of the region by launching a large-scale offensive last Friday.

During the subsequent Russian military operation to force Georgian troops out of the de facto independent republic and to reinforce its peacekeepers, Moscow sent some 10,000 troops and several hundred armored vehicles into the area.

Nogovitsyn said figures for Georgian losses were currently unavailable.

Georgia's National Security Council said on Wednesday the country has started talks with Russia on the exchange of military personnel captured during the conflict. The total number of prisoners taken by both sides has not been yet reported.

Nogovitsyn said Russia has made its own proposals on the exchange of prisoners and bodies and was waiting for Georgia's reply.


READ MORE -- http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080813/116011291.html






August 13, 2008 20:00
Wednesday

Dmitry Medvedev had a telephone conversation with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

On his personal behalf and on behalf of the entire Armenian people, Mr Sargsyan expressed his condolences at the tragic events in South Ossetia and the mass deaths of people. He also expressed readiness to provide humanitarian aid to the affected population.

The two Presidents spoke their support for taking all necessary measures to ensure that these events do not happen again and to normalize the situation in the region as rapidly as possible.
The conversation took place at Armenia’s initiative.

http://kremlin.ru/eng/sdocs/news.shtml#205278

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russians are claiming to have shot down another Georgian (Israeli) UAV Tuesday night.

Make that TWO drones now.

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/08/13/afx5319258.html

[RSNATION]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Make that TWO drones now.

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited...fx5319258.html

I'd say these drones are a big waste of money.

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russian forces sink Georgian ships

Russian forces have sunk several vessels in Georgia's military port of Poti, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid has reported from the scene.

The attack on Wednesday follows a day of dramatic developments in the Russia-Georgia conflict amid what appears to be an escalation of military action on the ground.

Abdel Hamid said: "Russia is clearly on the offensive.

"We have seen more and more Russian troops coming into the area all day - a continuous build up of forces including columns of tanks and truck all along the roads here.

"They came into this area and destroyed six Georgian vessels.

"From what we understand, they came with the specific task of destroying all the military facilities of the Georgians," she said.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull said: "Poti is one of the most important ports in the Black Sea.

"The offensive means that the ceasefire is dead - back to ground zero."

More here http://english.aljazeera.net/news/eu...517926662.html

[RSNATION]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

The Georgian "military" is a laughingstock

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/29407/

Russian road to victory easy in Georgia
by Stafan Korshak, Kyiv Post
Aug 13 2008, 21:56


GORI, GEORGIA – The debris of a defeated Georgian army, and quite possibly hopes of a solid NATO ally in the Caucasus, litters the road to Gori. And it just wasn’t supposed to be that way.

A drive up that surprisingly well-maintained roadway between the national capital of Tbilisi and the provincial seat where Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was born was, on the last day of the South Ossetia war, a surreal excursion. The same goes for the logic that seemingly drove Georgia into a full-fledged war against its giant neighbor Russia, a conflict that supposedly ended with a ceasefire agreement on Aug. 12. However, even after the truce was announced, news services were reporting Russian military incursions near Tblisi.

The geopolitical idea, for the Georgian government and its foreign friends, was that the former Soviet republic of Georgia would build a high-quality professional military along NATO lines, and trained by U.S. trainers to U.S. standards.

But Georgians abandoned Gori, a city of 37,000 residents, hastily and without a fight, as looming Russian tank columns rumbled from South Ossetia. The retreat, and at some points outright panic, showed the weaknesses of that optimistic plan. And on Aug. 12, dozens of abandoned Georgian military vehicles littered the road back to Tbilisi.

The Georgian army had of course for the previous four days been firing rocket barrages, and shoving troops north, in an attempt to push into the renegade province of South Ossetia and capture its capital, Tskhinvali.

The Georgian plan was to overwhelm the region with a concentration of U.S. schooled infantry backed up by bombardments delivered by NATO standard Czech manufactured heavy artillery.

Five of those hulking, self propelled and expensive howitzers on wheels, out of 24 bought from Prague and paid for by destitute Georgia’s tiny military budget, stood abandoned on the road to Gori. Hatches were open, passersby could inspect the fire control equipment inside and help themselves to military clothing and rations. One crew quit its vehicle in such a hurry that the anti aircraft machine gun was still mounted and free for the taking.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s calculation, now clearly faulty and the direct cause of the abandoned Czech artillery pieces, was that the Georgian army could swoop into the province and grab it before his opponents, and particularly the Russians, could react.

It might have worked too, but for a detachment of 588 Russian infantrymen stationed in South Ossetia as peacekeepers. Given Moscow’s long time support of South Ossetia, they were also dug in and ready to fight hard if the Georgians ever came.

The Russians held, and that bought time for Colonel General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, the gravel voiced deputy head of Russia’s General Staff and Saakashvili’s opponent in the South Ossetia war, to launch a counter offensive, first by air, then with tanks.

Russia lost between four and 14 jets in the war, depending on whose army was doing the counting, but in any case by the third day the Russian air force was ranging freely all over Georgia.

A common remark by Georgians moving along the road to and from Gori during the war, and discussing the Russian air force, was that the Russians “could see everything with their satellites,” and “can decide exactly what they hit.”

This was not strictly true, as the road to Gori shows. Just outside of the town are the remains of a Georgian armored personnel carrier demolished by a Russian fighter bomber, and right next to it a civilian Zhiguli car flattened by the blast.

Georgian soldiers retreating down the road from Gori on Aug. 11 told reporters one of the reasons they were pulling out was that they had few means to fight the Russian jets – quite in keeping with Georgia’s misguided NATO style training, which assumes a technically inferior opponent.

As a result, at the end of the road to Gori, throughout the South Ossetia war, Georgian soldiers and even average citizens have been nervous about any noise from the sky.

In Gori’s central square, where a Dutch reporter was killed either by strafing or a mortar barrage, depending on the eyewitness, the rumble of a Russian jet sent pedestrians for cover in doorways and under trees. Then the jet went about its business and the people in the square – Gori residents looking after their property and a few journalists – went their own ways. A smell of smoke hung in the air, as the Russians had been dropping bombs on a Georgian tank base nearby and sometimes they missed.

A reserve soldier who asked to be called Timur said he and his mates had been handed Kalashnikovs, stationed in Gori’s main square, and left without food, water or orders for two days. Russian fighter bombers strafed or bombed the tank base nearby from time to time, but sometimes the Russians aimed at the square and so, according to Timur, his entire war was listening for the sound of a jet and hiding as necessary.

When Timur and the rest of the Georgian army pulled out ahead of the advancing Russians, the retreat from Gori was chaotic, with soldiers running to jump onto the beds of new Toyota pickup trucks bought for army, and inexperienced drivers bogging armored vehicles in ditches.

About five kilometers from Gori, on the highway, are the hulks of two Russian made lorries, one an Ural and the second a Zil, smashed into each other in a catastrophic front end collision.

But perhaps most telling of all, at the end of the South Ossetian war, the Georgian army was nowhere to be seen. Not a checkpoint, not a guard post, not even a private with a rifle ready and willing to stop the Russians from driving their tanks to Georgia’s ancient capital of Tbilisi.

Saakashvili, hours after the ceasefire took effect, told Western reporters he was proud his Western style army had maintained its “discipline and honor.” As part of a ceasefire agreement engineered with great fanfare by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Russian army was to stay out of Georgia and Gori, and the Georgian army was to return to its bases.

Less than 12 hours after that agreement, heralded by Western governments as the first step towards a peace in the Caucasus, a Russian army motor rifle unit, Chechnya veterans mostly, drove into Gori, in blithe violation of the ceasefire agreement, according to Czech and German reporters on the scene.

The best part of Georgia’s U.S. trained army, a brigade of some 2,000 men, was in Iraq when the South Ossetia war broke out. The Americans brought the brigade home on Air Force cargo planes, and by the second to last day of the war, that brigade of desert veterans was back home to protect the Georgian homeland.

Then Sarkozy’s ceasefire came and, like the rest of the Georgian army, the Iraq brigade went back to its bases. When the Russians came to Gori, per the terms of the ceasefire, there were no Georgians there to oppose them.

Stefan Korshak is a former Kyiv Post staff writer. This story is a version of an account run by the German Press Agency.

[North Pole]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russia mourns victims of Ossetian bloodshed

VIDEO -- http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28945/video

Russia is holding a day of mourning for those killed during the five days of fighting in South Ossetia. People from the capital Tskhinvali, which became a battlefield after attack by Georgia, are recovering from a nightmare. It’s hard to find a citizen who hasn't lost a relative in the conflict. Meanwhile, Russian peacekeepers are continuing to pull people out from the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Funerals continue to take place in the breakaway republic for those killed during the war with Georgia.

Hundreds of people were hiding underground while the city was under attack, which almost completely destroyed the South Ossetian capital. Now the city is quiet. Most of its residents have fled or died.

The Chief Priest of the Province, Father Georgy, says 60% of his parishioners were killed.

“They particularly targeted churches because they knew that people tried to hide there,” he said.

It will take at least two years to rebuild Tskhinvali, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry. Moscow is allocating $US 400 million to restore the region and $US 20 million for an emergency search operation.

READ MORE -- http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28945


August 13, 2008 20:00
Wednesday

Dmitry Medvedev had a telephone conversation with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

On his personal behalf and on behalf of the entire Armenian people, Mr Sargsyan expressed his condolences at the tragic events in South Ossetia and the mass deaths of people. He also expressed readiness to provide humanitarian aid to the affected population.

The two Presidents spoke their support for taking all necessary measures to ensure that these events do not happen again and to normalize the situation in the region as rapidly as possible.
The conversation took place at Armenia’s initiative.

http://kremlin.ru/eng/sdocs/news.shtml#205278

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Armenia’s Supply Lines ‘Fully Restored’

By Emil Danielyan and Ruben Meloyan

Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian announced on Wednesday a full restoration of Armenia’s transport communication with the outside world that was disrupted by the conflict between neighboring Georgia and Russia.

He also said that Georgia is gradually restoring supplies of Russian natural gas to Armenia via its territory to pre-conflict levels.

The volume of those deliveries was abruptly cut by Georgian authorities following the August 8 outbreak of fighting in South Ossetia that spread to other parts of the country.

Armenia also uses Georgian territory and the Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi, in particular, for carrying out the bulk of its foreign trade. Poti was among civilian and military targets across Georgia attacked by Russian warplanes in recent days.

“As regards the transportation of goods [to and from Armenia,] there were problems for two days for the simple reason that people were scared of shipping goods through the ports of Poti and Batumi because of hostilities,” Sarkisian told journalists in televised remarks. “But because the hostilities have stopped the cargo turnover has been fully restored.”

“So there is absolutely no need to worry that we won’t be able to meet demand in some goods,” he said. “We have sufficient reserves of basic goods.” He specified that Armenia’s stockpiles of wheat and fuel will suffice to meet domestic demand for six and one months respectively.

The premier’s assurances appeared to contradict the latest statements by Armenia’s consul-general in Batumi. The diplomat, Hakob Haji-Hakobian, said that Poti was again bombarded overnight. “The port of Poti is not functioning,” he told RFE/RL by phone. “They are neither accepting nor sending cargos right now.”

Armenian businessmen dealing with cargo shipments claimed the opposite later in the day, however. Vladimir Badalian, co-chairman of an Armenian-Georgian business association, said: “I’ve just phoned the deputy director of the Poti port. He said the port is working and there are no problems.”

According to Gagik Aghajanian, deputy director of the cargo company Apaven, a Swiss-owned ferry laden with 300 freight containers, one third of them bound for Armenia, was able to dock at Poti late Tuesday. “They began to unload the containers an hour ago,” he told RFE/RL in the afternoon.

Armenia also continued to evacuate thousands of its citizens spending their vacations in Batumi and nearby seaside resorts. According to the Foreign Ministry, another 1,520 of them have returned home since Tuesday evening, raising to about 13,000 the total number of evacuees. Haji-Hakobian said there are several hundred Armenian vacationers remaining on the Georgian Black Sea cost.

From http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeni...56A8C7C332.ASP