Russia expanded its bombing Sunday against neighboring Georgia, targeting the country's capital for the first time. bombing Tbilisi's international airport. On Sunday morning, Georgia announced it had pulled its troops out of South Ossetia under heavy Russian shelling, however Russian military commanders on the ground denied the reports.
While the two countries are no strangers to conflict and relations between the two sides have been extremely tense for some time, there are those who question Russia's powerful media and its ability to dictate the news it seeks to portray to the world, allowing it to build up the current conflict days before battles erupted on the ground. Georgia, officials say, is no match for the Russian media moguls.
Reviewing the countless media reports on the situation, Russian media reports on August 2 claimed , Georgia dispatched troops to the " Georgian Ossetian zone of conflict." Days later the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on all parties to show maximum restraint. "Russia will continue taking all measures to find mutually acceptable peaceful solutions. Use of force scenarios will conclusively thwart all hopes of settling the Georgian Ossetian conflict," a statement said.
Russian media reports often used the word "genocide" to describe the border conflict. There were reports that Russian hackers deliberately accessed Georgian government websites, and in some instances posted Adolf Hitler's photo on the sites.
On August 4, the Russian foreign ministry declared the situation had escalated following a massive mortar attack on residential quarters of Tkshinvali that caused a number of casualties on the night of August 1 -2. Russian media reports declared that hostilities between Georgia and South Ossetia were becoming increasingly real and described the situation as an imminent threat. The ministry also rejected Georgian allegations of the possible involvement of Russian peacekeepers in a shootout in the South Ossetian conflict zone that night.
However Mamuka Kurashvili, a Georgian Defense Ministry official in charge of overseeing peacekeeping operations, said that the Georgian side suspected the Russian peacekeepers were engaged in the shelling of Georgian villages. The RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Alexander Drobishevsky response to Georgia's claims at the time, and quoted him as saying, "this allegation of the Georgian side is provocative, dirty misinformation.”
A Global Policy Forum paper published in May this year asked what would it need to persuade the European Union that what Russia is doing in Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia merits more than a gentle reproach? Moscow the report said has been escalating its efforts to bring these territories - which broke free of Tbilisi's control in the wars of 1992-93 - even more closely under its wing. The EU, it said, would not take sides in the conflict but would work towards a peaceful solution. Georgians can only react to such equivocation with incredulity. Since March 2008, Russia has intensified the pressure on Georgia with a series of moves that Tbilisi interprets - almost certainly correctly - as an attempt to provoke it into hasty action.
The report said, Moscow has unilaterally lifted trade sanctions on Abkhazia and South Ossetia imposed under the post-Soviet regional body, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); it has come within an ace of recognising the two territories' independence; it has increased its troop presence in Abkhazia without consulting Georgia (as it is obliged to do by the Moscow ceasefire agreement of 1994); one of its Mig-29s appears to have shot down a Georgian drone over the Black Sea; and it has threatened Georgia with military action.
Russia's pretext for these aggressive measures is that it is obliged to protect its citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia the report noted, but claimed its concerns as fictive, for this Russian "diaspora" is an artificial creation: Moscow has spent the last few years distributing Russian passports in both areas to virtually anyone who wants one.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Israel's Foreign Ministry recommended a complete halt to the sale of arms and any security-related equipment to Georgia in light of the recent fighting with Russian forces, further tightening an arms boycott on Tbilisi, almost a year after a decision had been made in Jerusalem to limit exports to Georgia to defensive equipment. Jerusalem, concerned that its failure to halt the arms sales to Georgia will invite a harsh Russian response and possible retaliation against Jerusalem, and cause Russia to increase its military assistance to Iran.
Israel's Defense Ministry held a special meeting Sunday to discuss the various arms deals held by Israelis in Georgia, but no change in policy has been announced as of yet. "The subject is closely monitored," said sources in the Defense Ministry. "We are not operating in any way which may counter Israeli interests. We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia; and the ones which have been approves have been duly scrutinized. So far, we have placed no limitations on the sale of protective measures."
The Jewish Agency has advised some 200 Jews living in Gori near the south Ossetia border to leave immediately for the Georgian capital of Tbilisi as fighting intensified between Russia and Georgia on Saturday. The Jewish Agency is working in full co-ordination with the Foreign Ministry, which on Saturday advised Israelis to refrain from traveling to Georgia and urged those currently there to contact the Foreign Ministry.
So far the international arena has failed to bring a halt to the conflict. Fierce battles raged for a second day Saturday in south Ossetia, as Russia dispatched hundreds of troops to the area and threatened to bomb more Georgian bases.
According to reports out of Moscow over 2000 Russians and Georgians have already been killed in the fighting. Georgia, a staunch US ally, launched a major offensive Friday to retake control of separatist South Ossetia.
Russia, which has close ties to the province and posts peacekeepers there to protect citizens with Russian citizenship, responded by sending in armed convoys. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people had been killed, with the death toll rising Saturday. Georgia called for a ceasefire after Russian bombers expanded their offensive in an attempt to push Georgian troops back.
The United Nations, NATO and the European Union were planning to dispatch officials to the area in an attempt to broker a ceasefire between the sides.
Meanwhile US President George W. Bush declared that the Russian attacks on Georgia marked a dangerous escalation and called on Moscow to immediately cease all hostilities.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded swiftly to Bush saying that the only solution to end the crisis was for Georgia to pull its forces out of the region. However many noted that it is not Medvedev who calls the tunes but the real boss of Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, never one to shy away from violence.
Georgian President Mikhail Sakashvilli called for an immediate ceasefire declaring that Russia began the conflict by launching a full scale invasion on Georgia. 08/10/08
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