Free Republic

Russia: After hearing the hard, cold facts of Russia's brutal occupation of Georgia, the West has no choice but to respond harshly to Vladimir Putin's regime. Failure to do so would only invite further attacks. Apologists for Russia say it really had no choice: Because of "genocide" in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia had to intervene. It was an "emergency." It wasn't.

I hope everyone has heard about the war in South Ossetia and Georgia. You probably are convinced by what the media reports, in particular that “Russia is the aggressor against innocent Georgia”. Our government is backing Georgia and also telling us about Russia’s aggression. But that is a lie. I have always made fun of the conspiracy theory people, but I find myself in the same position–criticizing the government and sounding crazy. But I cannot keep quite when such an injustice is going on; so please do not take my words as that of a crazy man who hates America–on...

The leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia believe that Georgia’s botched military assault means they now have a better chance than ever of getting international recognition for their independence. Their respective leaders, Eduard Kokoity and Sergey Bagapsh, said they see no need to hold another referendum on their status, since their nations have already expressed their wills. After the meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the two leaders of the breakaway republics held a news conference in Moscow. (WATCH the media conference) Abkhazian leader Sergey Bagapsh said: “As for our independence and our movement to that goal, no one can...

Russian troops are indiscriminately murdering civilians and interning them in concentration camps, the embattled Georgian president charged yesterday, as he begged the West not to "appease" Moscow as it did with Nazi Germany. The startling accusations came as Russian troops blatantly violated a cease-fire by sending an armored convoy through the strategic city of Gori. The invaders first poured into Georgia five days ago - ostensibly in defense of a pro-Moscow breakaway region, South Ossetia. "What they are doing is exactly what Stalin did to Finland, what they've done to Afghanistan, what in the Second World War Germany was doing...

Reports of a hundred tanks or vehicles headed toward Georgia's interior, breaking per Shep Smith.

President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said Thursday that Russia would act as an international guarantor of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two pro-Russian enclaves at the center of the crisis that have long desired separation from Georgia. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the region for discussions on the crisis and to show support for President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, the Russian position seemed to be a direct challenge to President George W. Bush, who had said the day before that he "insists that the sovereign and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected." In Georgia, meanwhile, Russian forces...

Russia altered the balance of power in Europe when the Kremlin halted its attack on Georgia after its forces had effectively annexed 18 per cent of the country. Russia closed its Five Day War in full control of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which total more than 4,800 square miles of the neighbouring state. While Russian troops have been deployed in these enclaves since 1992, they have never previously controlled their entire territory. Having achieved this by force, Moscow's terms for a permanent truce would cement its gains. The Kremlin has also demonstrated its indifference to western...

Autonomy and Conflict   Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus – Cases in Georgia Svante E. Cornell   Uppsala 2002   Excerpt, pp. 167-170 6.6.3. The War in Abkhazia As mentioned earlier, the Abkhaz and Georgian leadership had managed in late 1991 to agree, though with difficulty, on a consociational scheme for the Abkhaz parliament. And indeed, Abkhazia had been surprisingly calm during the rule of Gamsakhurdia; the fact that the latter, who by late 1991 had shed most the little will to compromise he possessed, agreed to a scheme that granted the Abkhaz heavy over-representation, adds to the...

SENAKI, Georgia: Russia issued an ultimatum to Georgia on Monday to disarm its troops along the boundary with the pro-Russian separatist enclave of Abkhazia as Russian tanks rolled across the internal border and occupied a military base in western Georgia. The move was a sign that fighting could escalate on a second, western front after the conflict initially broke out last week around South Ossetia, the separatist enclave farther east. President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said its forces had "completed a significant part of the operations to oblige Georgia, the Georgian authorities, to restore peace to South Ossetia," according to...

TBILISI, Georgia — Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces after three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said. The maneuver — along with aerial bombing of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi — suggested that Russia’s aims in the conflict had gone beyond securing the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to weakening the armed forces of Georgia, a former Soviet republic and an ally of...

Tbilisi. Georgia accused Russia on Sunday of making "dangerous moves" by asking the UN to withdraw its observers from territory near its breakaway region of Abkhazia. "The Russians have asked the United Nations observers to withdraw their posts from the territory between Abkhazia and Zugdidi district," interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP. "We observe very dangerous moves in the Abkhaz direction," he said. "The demand itself to withdraw these posts is dangerous."

The conflict in the Caucasus yesterday spread to Georgia's second breakaway province of Abkhazia where separatist rebels and the Russian air force launched an all-out attack on Georgian forces. snip "The operation will enter the next phase as planned. And you will learn about that," he said, adding that he would create a "humanitarian corridor" allowing residents in the district to flee. The offensive appears to mark a dangerous new front in the conflict between Georgia and Russia. snip Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said: "They have started the operation to storm Kodori gorge." Asked who was behind the...

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. 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."

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...

"It looks very strongly like the war is escalating both in the region of South Ossetia and now also in Abkhazia," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who chairs the group, told reporters in Helsinki on Saturday.

EURASIA DAILY MONITOR Volume 5, Issue 123 (June 27, 2008)   GEORGIA HIGH ON THE EU-RUSSIA SUMMIT AGENDA By Vladimir Socor The European Union has decided to make an issue of Russia’s assault on Georgia at the EU-Russia summit in Khanty-Mansiisk on June 26 and 27. This decision, and the surge of attention to Georgia within the EU, are unprecedented and were almost forced on the EU by Moscow’s overt seizure Abkhazia in progress since April. Many West Europeans who previously looked away from the situation are now seriously talking about it, though not yet acting on it. Russia’s...

Georgia's march into South Ossetia has prompted the Abkhazia to begin preparing for war as well. Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told SPIEGEL ONLINE that his province might open up a second front. SPIEGEL ONLINE: How is Abkhazia reacting to the events in South Ossetia? Shamba: We have a deal with South Ossetia on how we will deal with crisis situations. And we are now planning on implementing it. Our security council met all night and ordered our army to deploy this morning to the Georgian border. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will a second front now be opened in Abkhazia? Shamba: That...

Russia sent troops and dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia today, vowing to protect its citizens in a move described by Tbilisi's pro-Western Government as an act of war. A South Ossetian rebel minister said that more than 1,000 people had been killed in overnight shelling of the city of Tskhinvali, the separatist capital which Georgia claimed today to have captured. In probably the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 Russian tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia. "We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels. Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians...

Vladimir Putin, the outgoing Russian president, on Wednesday accelerated Moscow’s creeping annexation of Georgian territories to sweeping annexation. This is a victory for hardliners who pressed Mr Putin to give the order before he moves from the Kremlin to the Russian White House as prime minister. It comes as Georgian proposals for peaceful settlements in the territories, Abkhazia and South Os­setia, languish. The west must shake off its torpor, condemn Mr Putin’s gambit and support the Georgian proposals. Ignoring Moscow’s Soviet-style land-grab would intensify strife in the south Caucasus. According to Mr Putin’s “instruction”, Russia will open “representations” in the...