Posted on 08/13/2008 4:58:09 AM PDT by maquiladora
FRANCE 24 reporters saw a Russian armoured column move into position on a hill above the Georgian city of Gori and install mortars. Georgia earlier accused Russia of moving troops inside Georgia despite a ceasefire deal. (Photo: DKTV2)
A day after warring Georgia and Russia agreed to a ceasefire, the conflict in the Caucasus appears far from resolved.
On Wednesday morning, FRANCE 24 reporters saw a column of Russian Special Forces armoured vehicles move into position on a hill above the Georgian city of Gori and install mortars.
“The Russian forces have climbed a hill dominating Gori and are installing mortars as I speak,” FRANCE 24’s Nicolas Ransom reported, adding that he could not confirm whether the mortars were turned toward the city.
According to Ransom, the Russian soldiers “are waving their arms and smiling but it is not clear what their intentions are.”
Earlier, Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili scorned Russian claims of a ceasefire at a press conference in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, saying that bombing and "the worst kind of marauding" were continuing in Gori. According to Ransom, the city of Gori was deserted and the Red Cross personnel were leaving the town.
According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, the Russian military firmly rejected the Georgian allegations. "Neither Russian peacekeepers nor any units subordinate to them are present in Gori," the agency quoted a Russian military spokesman as saying.
Russia then accused Georgia of dragging its feet on withdrawing forces from front-line positions and insisted that the status of separatist Georgian provinces would have to be reviewed. "Georgian forces have begun their pullback towards Tbilisi but no active withdrawal has yet been observed," General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, told reporters.
On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Georgian counterpart agreed to a French-brokered peace plan, which included a halt to hostilities and a withdrawal of troops to lines preceding the current conflict.
The war between Georgia and Russia broke out on Friday, following a Georgian military intervention in South Ossetia, a Russian-backed separatist province. According to the United Nations, the number of people uprooted in the conflict is approaching 100,000.
A humble suggestion:
Could we pick one thread and run it as a “Live Thread”, bringing new info into it, rather than starting a new thread every twenty minutes or so??
(I’ve got so many tabs going on the Russo-Georgian debacle that all that displays is the first two letters of each title...)
Pardon the intrusion....
...the Russian soldiers “are waving their arms and smiling but it is not clear what their intentions are.”
_________
You have to be kidding......
Hard just to keep up. So much news breaking so fast.
” Hard just to keep up. So much news breaking so fast. “
That’s my point, exactly — an advantage of a “Live Thread” is that a wide variety of information tends to magically assemble itself into a kind-of narrative, which can be followed even by those of us with encroaching senility or other attention-span disorders...
(Besides, it puts all of the pro-Putin sleeper trolls in one place, where we can deal with them effectively... ;~))
Amazing how many there were this time. I guess that is what oil money can do for you.
” Amazing how many there were this time. “
What’s amazing is that virtually all of ‘em signed on to FR in 2000 or earlier — we’ve apparently been pretty thoroughly penetrated by a highly disciplined group of agents.....
However, if both the Bush Admninistration and the Georgians are smart, this situation can be turned around quickly, IF the U.S. uses the lull and the fascade of "peace talks" to very quietly sneak in Green Beret and SEAL advisors through Turkey, accompanied by LOTS of AT-4s and Javelin missiles to take out the Russian T-80s and BMPs, and also Stingers and even Patriots to manhandle the Russian attack bombers.
Blow the tunnel, and then start picking off the Russki tanks and aircraft, one by one, and things could get very uncomfortable for Putin really fast.
CNN is reporting at least 1 MBT, 12-14 IFV’s, and they have turned off the road to Tblisi.
Most likely a recon in force.
But DEFINATELY a violation of the Sarkozy Agreement!
Russia is trying to do as much damage to the Georgian military infastruture as possible while they still have a chance. Since Georgian forces have withdrawn and abandoned these bases they were unlikely to have to open fire, which makes it easier for them to deny whats happening.
Hey, I tried to smoke some out by calling the Russians Mongols a few days ago. Might have caused a couple to show their stripes. :>. That time line is interesting. Just prior to 911.
” That time line is interesting. “
Another interesting timeline question is why so many of them ‘broke cover’, after all these years, over what is, on the surface, a minor ‘border skirmish’....
There may be some significance to that....
(I hope the Robinsons are paying attention...)
Well, I guess after a few rounds of vodka......
Hope you don't mean we got a slew of potential saboteurs that just activated stateside.
” Hope you don’t mean we got a slew of potential saboteurs that just activated stateside. “
Not sure just what it may signify - but my personal defcon level has racheted up a bit in the last couple of days...
‘By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes..’
How about send truck loads of captured Iranian IEDs to Georgia? Make it look like Iran is backing the Georgians against the Ruskies?
Georgia is lucky that the BBC was there. When they said the Russian had pushed on into other cities and had the video to back it up. They made Russia look like the aggressor it is.
If it had been Fox News the Russian might not have stopped their advance.
I am posting of three different threads right now.
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