Posted on 08/17/2008 8:38:47 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali.
Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar to the Holocaust.
But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting — missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops — almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing.
Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city's main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.
The discrepancy between the numbers at Tskhinvali's main hospital and the rhetoric of Russian and South Ossetian leaders raises serious questions about the veracity of the Kremlin's version of events. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in Moscow have said the Georgians were guilty of "genocide," prompting their forces to push Georgia's military out of South Ossetia — in a barrage of bombing runs and tanks blasts — and march southeast toward the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, stopping only 25 miles away.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
And..., we are supposed to be surprised at this "news"???
lol!
russia’s not ready to join the g-7.
Ping
OUR media is undercutting the Soviets?
There’s a first time for everything.
Early on while Georgia was in S. Ossetia, I was lurking on another board where people all over the Russian “sphere of influence” were repeating Kremlin talking points about the “genocide” in S. Ossetia, and at least 1,400 people were killed. (btw, it’s about time to see that number rising in support of their genocide claim. Meanwhile the Kremlin and the West MSM were reporting that untold numbers were certainly wounded and the entire city destroyed due to the 24hr shelling by Georgia.
Then we got some early shots of Tskinvali. I think I counted THREE apartment buildings that had gotten some pretty serious damage.
Not to say there wasn’t more damage but even that early they were claiming the city was destroyed and it certainly was not.
Then it can’t begin to compare with Vukovar circa 1993.
Here are some pictures of destruction to "still standing" civilian building. I'm sure that's a consolation to the people that live there! Most are of Tskhinvali ( Цхинвал ). The ones with the soldiers in Georgian uniforms are in Gori. In the background there's the apartment block that was hit when the Russian were bombing a Georgian tank battalion nearby.
There are military equipment pictures interspersed and be warned, there are some gruesome casualty pictures at the end of the page.
Ping.
I still see the same apartment block (standing, but with windows blown out) with the same two Georgian tanks blown up in the square.
I have yet to see the demolition claimed by the Russians to have taken place in Tskhinvali.
Wonderful tagline!
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