Putin Says `War Has Started,' Georgia Claims Invasion

[James]

Latest updates -

• Russia issues ultimatum near Abkhazia | The Age
• Cold War reheated as U.S. and Russia duke it out over Georgia | Global News Blog | Blogs | Reuters.com
• Russia answers cease-fire offer with wider assault on Georgia | Minneapolis Star Tribune
• Russia boosts forces in Abkhazia to 9,000-Ifax | Reuters
• Russia seizes South Ossetia as wider conflict feared | AFP

[James]

Latest updates -

• Putin assails US over conflict with Georgia | IHT
• S.Ossetia: "Intense" Georgia shelling resumes-Ifax | Reuters
• Swarms of Russian jets bomb Georgian targets | AP
• Strategic blunder led Georgia into S.Ossetia folly | World | Reuters

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Russia seizes Georgia base, opens second front | Kansas City Star

Russia opened a second front of fighting in Georgia on Monday, sending armored vehicles beyond two breakaway provinces and seizing a military base and police stations in the country's west, the Georgian government and a Russian official said.

The new forays into Georgia - even as Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on signed a cease-fire pledge - appeared to show Russian determination to subdue the small, U.S.-backed country, which has been pressing for NATO membership.

The latest developments indicate that Russian troops have invaded Georgia proper from the separatist province of Abkhazia while most Georgian forces are locked up in fighting around another breakaway region of South Ossetia.

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Developing Story - Russia denies Georgia invasion claims | CNN

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Russian troops invade Georgia and take the city of Gori | Times Online

Russian forces overran the strategic Georgian city of Gori today as troops prepared to defend the capital Tbilisi from what one official called a "total onslaught".

Georgian soldiers fled Gori, 17 miles from the border with rebel South Ossetia, in panic and disarray, clinging to the sides of cars and vehicles as they sped out of town. A Georgian armoured personnel carrier was in flames on the street, a victim of the sudden rout.

Alexander Lomaia, secretary of the Georgian security council, said that the Georgian army had been told instead to concentrate its efforts on holding Mtskheta, 15 miles from the capital.

"Russian forces are occupying Gori. Georgian armed forces received an order to leave Gori and to fortify positions near Mtskheta to defend the capital. This is a total onslaught," Mr Lomaia said.

Georgia was facing a Russian push on two fronts as as the Kremlin continued to ignore international pressure for a ceasefire five days into the conflict.

In the west, Russian troops entered Georgia from the breakaway region of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, while in the north, intense shelling continued in and around South Ossetia.

Moscow confirmed that its soldiers had swept from Abkhazia into the town of Senaki, 40 km inside Georgia. The Defence Ministry in Moscow claimed that the raid on Senaki was intended to prevent Georgian troops from regrouping for "new attacks on South Ossetia".

The admission marked a dangerous new phase in the conflict as Russia advanced into Georgian territory with no indication of when its offensive might cease, despite a claim from President Medvedev that much of the operation was complete.

President Saakashvili told Georgians in a televised address that Russia was attempting to occupy the whole country. He said: "This provocation was aimed at occupying South Ossetia, Abkhazia and then all of Georgia."...

The prospects for a negotiated ceasefire were dealt a blow when Russia's ambassador to Nato declared that Mr Saakashvili "is no longer a man that we can deal with". Dmitri Rogozin said: "He must be punished for breaching international law. He is responsible for many war crimes."

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[James]

Georgia: Vladimir Putin sends emphatic message of global importance | Telegraph

Russia's pounding of Georgia means it will use force to protect all 25 million Russians in states that belonged to the Soviet Union

By seizing the opportunity to pound Georgia with air strikes and military incursions, Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, is sending an emphatic message with global consequences.

The curtain has fallen on the era when Nato steadily expanded into Eastern Europe and onwards to embrace former republics of the Soviet Union - and Russia was able to respond with nothing more than bluster.

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See also - Another battle in the 1,000-year Russia-Georgia grudge match | Simon Sebag Montefiore - Times

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Fear of Russia ends Israeli support for Georgia | Israel Today

A top Georgian envoy in Israel on Sunday urged the Jewish state to use whatever leverage it has to put pressure on Russia to pull its forces out of the small Caucasus nation. But while voicing support for Georgian territorial integrity, Israel decided instead to appease Russia by halting all arms sales to Tbilisi.

Israel has sold some $500 million worth of military equipment to Georgia over the past few years, and top Israeli military experts have been involved in training Georgian armed forces.

Israeli soldiers who participated in training Georgian forces as recently as four months ago told Ha'aretz that they were not surprised when hostilities broke out. "There was an atmosphere of war about to break out. ...From my point of view, the battles of the past few days were to be expected," said one soldier.

As Russian forces invaded Georgia late last week and the two nations engaged in what is increasingly being called a full-scale war, Israel's leadership expressed concerns that Moscow could retaliate for continued Israeli military support of Georgia by selling advanced arms to Iran and Syria.

Full Story

War in Georgia: The Israeli connection | Israel News | Ynetnews

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Russia orders end to operation after bombing of media centre | Times Online

This morning the Kremlin said that Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian President, had ordered a halt to the military operation in Georgia...

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told a press conference in Moscow this morning that Georgia must withdraw its troops not just from South Ossetia but also from a buffer zone around the province, including the military installations around Gori.

He rejected claims that Russia wanted to topple Mr Saakashvili, but said that it would be better if the Georgian president resigned. He accused Mr Saakashvili of war crimes, claiming that Georgian troops mowed down elderly South Ossetians with battle tanks during their brief and ill-fated incursion into the province last week.

Lavrov calls on Georgian president to step down | IHT

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Echo of Cold War as US flexes its muscles in the Russia / Georgia conflict | Times Online

Sending US forces into Georgia, albeit to deliver humanitarian supplies, represents the most serious military escalation between Washington and Moscow since the end of the Cold War.

Not since British paratroopers came nose to nose with Russian soldiers at Pristina airport in 1999 have the old East-West rivalries resurfaced in such explosive form. Back then, the situation was defused by General Sir Mike Jackson, the British commander, who refused to confront the Russians and “start World War III”.

It is to be hoped that the commanders of the US Navy and Air Force now leading their forces to Georgia will be equipped with the same diplomatic skills. Nevertheless, entering a new war zone is fraught with dangers. The US Navy’s task force will be challenging the Russian naval blockade of Georgia’s ports, while the giant US military cargo planes will be landing close to areas recently bombed by Russian warplanes. The Georgians tried to exploit the move last night by declaring that their ports and airports would be put under US military control, an offer the Pentagon quickly declined.

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U.S.-Russia tensions heighten over Georgia conflict | Los Angeles Times

GORI, GEORGIA -- With Russia still defying U.S. demands to pull its troops from Georgia, the short, one-sided fight over two small mountain provinces widened Thursday into the sharpest exchanges yet between Washington and Moscow, threatening to unravel the post-Cold War consensus between them.

As Washington dispatched humanitarian relief, but no military aid, to its Georgian allies, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that unless Russian forces relented from their incursion into Georgia, "the U.S.-Russian relationship could be adversely affected for years to come."

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov bluntly told the Georgians to "forget about" recovering the two secessionist provinces whose unsettled fate triggered this month's fighting. Instead of withdrawing, as demanded a day earlier by President Bush, the Russian military plunged deeper into several towns in Georgia proper, Georgian officials said.

Russia: Georgia can 'forget' regaining provinces | AP

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Vladimir Putin's mastery checkmates the West | Times Online

Russia has been biding its time, but its victory in Georgia has been brutal - and brilliant

Michael Binyon

The cartoon images have shown Russia as an angry bear, stretching out a claw to maul Georgia. Russia is certainly angry, and, like a beast provoked, has bared its teeth. But it is the wrong stereotype. What the world has seen last week is a brilliant and brutal display of Russia's national game, chess. And Moscow has just declared checkmate.

Chess is a slow game. One has to be ready to ignore provocations, lose a few pawns and turn the hubris of others into their own entrapment. For years there has been rising resentment within Russia. Some of this is inevitable: the loss of empire, a burning sense of grievance and the fear that in the 1990s, amid domestic chaos and economic collapse, Russia's views no longer mattered.

A generalised resentment, similar to the sour undercurrents of Weimar Germany, began to focus on specific issues: the nonchalance of the Clinton Administration about Russian sensitivities, especially over the Balkans and in opening Nato's door to former Warsaw Pact members; the neo-conservative agenda of the early Bush years that saw no role for Russia in its global agenda; and Washington's ingratitude after 9/11 for vital Kremlin support over terrorism, Afghanistan and intelligence on extremism.

More infuriating was Western encouragement of “freedom” in the former Soviet satellite states that gave carte blanche to forces long hostile to Russia. In the Baltic states, Soviet occupation could be portrayed as worse than the Nazis. EU commissioners from new member states could target Russian policies. Populists in Eastern Europe could ride to power on anti-Russian rhetoric emboldened by Western applause for their fluency in English.

Nowhere was such taunting more wounding than in Ukraine and Georgia, two countries long part of the Russian Empire, whose history, religion and culture were so intertwined with Russia's. Moscow tried, disastrously, to check Western, and particularly American, influence in Ukraine. The clumsy meddling led to the Orange Revolution.

Georgia was a different matter. Relations were always mercurial, but Eduard Shevardnadze, the wily former Soviet Foreign Minister, knew how to keep atavistic animosities in check. Not so his brash successor, Mikheil Saakashvili. From then on, hubris was Tbilisi's undoing.

It was not simply the dismissive rhetoric, the open door to US advisers or the economic illiteracy in forgetting dependence on Russian energy and remittance from across the border; it was the determined attempt to make Georgia a US regional ally and outpost of US influence.

Big powers do not like other big powers poaching. This may not be moral or fair but it is reality, and one that underpins the Security Council veto. The Monroe Doctrine - “hands off the Americas” - has been policy in Washington for 200 years. The US is ready to risk war to keep out not only other powers but hostile ideologies - in Cuba and Nicaragua.

Vladimir Putin lost several pawns on the chessboard - Kosovo, Iraq, Nato membership for the Baltic states, US renunciation of the ABM treaty, US missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. But he waited.

The trap was set in Georgia. When President Saakashvili blundered into South Ossetia, sending in an army to shell, kill and maim on a vicious scale (against US advice and his promised word), Russia was waiting.

It was not only Mr Saakashvili who thought that he had the distraction of the Olympics to cover him; the Kremlin also knew that Mr Bush was watching basketball, and, in the longer term, that the US army was fully engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the day that the Russian tank brigade raced through the tunnel into South Ossetia, Russia has not made one wrong move. Mr Bush's remarks yesterday notwithstanding, In five days it turned an overreaching blunder by a Western-backed opponent into a devastating exposure of Western impotence, dithering and double standards on respecting national sovereignty (viz Iraq).

The attack was short, sharp and deadly - enough to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic, their rout captured by global television. The destruction was enough to hurt, but not so much that the world would be roused in fury. The timing of the ceasefire was precise: just hours before President Sarkozy could voice Western anger. Moscow made clear that it retained the initiative. And despite sporadic breaches - on both sides - Russia has blunted Georgian charges that this is a war of annihilation.

Moscow can also counter Georgian PR, the last weapon left to Tbilisi. Human rights? Look at what Georgia has done in South Ossetia (and also in Abkhazia). National sovereignty? Look at the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia. False pretexts? Look at Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada to “rescue” US medical students. Western outrage? Look at the confused cacophony.

There are lessons everywhere. To the former Soviet republics - remember your geography. To Nato - do you still want to incorporate Caucasian vendettas into your alliance? To Tbilisi - do you want to keep a President who brought this on you? To Washington - does Russia's voice still count for nothing? Like it or not, it counts for a lot.

Source: Times