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Ossetia conflict between Georgia and Russia expands (2nd Roundup)
Aug 9, 2008, 15:34 GMT
South Ossetian women with their children from the village of Dzhava hide in the forest as aircrafts fly over the village, 09 August 2008. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
Moscow/Tbilisi - The war between Russia and Georgia expanded on Saturday, with fighting spilling outside the Caucasus province of Ossetia and both sides moving reinforcements into the region.
The fiercest battles were in the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali, where street fighting and artillery exchanges continued sporadically throughout the night.
Intense howitzer and tank fire in the vicinity of the town was audible by mid-morning on Saturday. Shelling intensified in the early afternoon as Russian forces went on the counteroffensive.
Georgian television showed images of hundreds of rockets and heavy artillery shells crashing into Tskhinvali. Shelling reduced entire city blocks to rubble, according to eyewitnesses.
Counts of civilian casualties varied widely, with Georgia estimating between one and two dozen killed, and some 100 injured as of Friday evening.
Eduard Kokoity, South Ossetia's leader, claimed more than 1,600 civilians had died and implied thousands more had been injured.
Anatoly Nagovytsyn, a Russian army spokesman, blamed the high civilian casualties on massive Georgian use of rocket salvoes, by their nature an imprecise weapon.
Eyewitnesses said many Tskhinvali victims lost their lives when caught out in the open by artillery fire as they attempted to flee. Georgian television showed images of corpses sprawled along sidewalks and streets, in some cases still holding luggage.
Russian army losses, primarily to a peacekeeping unit stationed in South Ossetia when intense fighting broke out, were admitted at 12 soldiers killed and 22 seriously injured, the Kremlin said.
Georgian military losses as of Saturday were reported at 50 dead and 'in excess of 450' injured, the Interfax news agency reported citing an unnamed Georgian army officer.
Georgian television showed images of a continuous trickle of Georgian casualties moving to rear areas aboard jeeps and pickup trucks.
Russian forces consisting of Spetsnaz special forces infantry, and paratrooper infantry flown in from the Russian interior had captured Tskhinvali by Saturday afternoon, Georgian officials said.
Aleksander Lomaia, Georgia's national security chief, in a telephone interview said Georgian forces had pulled back from the town 'unilaterally.'
Spokesmen for Russia's 58th Army early on Saturday confirmed regular army forces including two tank columns had been arriving in the region throughout the night, at times under Georgian artillery fire, and that a counteroffensive to eject Georgian troops from the city was being planned.
'We are preparing to re-establish the peace,' said Igor Konashenkov, a Russian army spokesman, according to Interfax. 'Georgian forces will be ordered to pull out of Tskhinvali.'
Lomaia estimated the Russian infantry assault force at 1,500 to 2,500 troopers.
Russian airstrikes ranged widely across Georgia throughout the day, with Su-25 and Tu-22 aircraft, among other types, hitting in and outside South Ossetia.
Targets bombed or rocketed by Russian aircraft in dozens of sorties included, reportedly, oil pipelines, airfields, and military bases in the towns Vaziani, Gori, and Senaki, according to a Georgia government statement.
Gori was hit a second time in as many days. Errant Russian bombs killed at least 20 Gori residents, Georgia's national television channel reported.
Russian bombers also hit Georgia's only oil terminal in the Black Sea port Poti, destroying 'almost everything' and leaving the installation in flames, the Interfax news agency reported.
A strike of 12 jets hit the Kodori Gorge, a disputed region in Georgia's west, Lomaia said. Alekasandr Bagapsh, the leader of Abkhazia, a separatist province to Georgia's east, claimed responsibility for the attack, and said Abkhazian ground forces were attacking in the region.
Bagapsh's announcement marked a dramatic widening of fighting in the region, as it opened a new front of combat to the west of South Ossetia.
Railroad flatcars loaded with military equipment late Saturday afternoon were moving from the Georgian port Batumi towards the front, the Interfax news agency reported.
Georgia by Saturday had claimed it had shot down 10 Russian jets. Georgian air force officers said they had captured one Russian pilot, and recovered the corpse of a crew member of a second Russian aircraft.
Russian army spokesmen confirmed two Russian aircraft had been shot down, and said Russian forces had destroyed two Georgian aircraft. There was no independent confirmation of the Russian claim.
Lomoia said Georgian forces had destroyed 30 Russian tanks or self-propelled guns since the war's outbreak. Russia thus far had not announced any ground equipment losses.
Russia and Georgia announced halts to civilian air traffic effective Saturday. Refugees were leaving Ossetia and heading north towards the Russian border throughout the night, at times under Georgian artillery fire.
Russia was according to unconfirmed diplomatic reports taking a hard line on halting the fighting, threatening among others a blockade of Georgia's coast by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and expanded air bombardment, if Georgia does not evacuate its forces from South Ossetia.
Warships operated by Turkey, a NATO member, reportedly were standing offshore of Batumi.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in a national television address accused Russia of expanding the conflict, and moving towards all-out war, by launching airstrikes against Georgian targets outside Ossetia.
Georgia mobilized its reserves on Thursday, and declared martial law on Saturday. Georgia would bring home an elite 2,000-man Georgian infantry brigade currently stationed in Iraq, Saakashvili said.
International efforts to bring a ceasefire appeared stymied, with the UN Security Council at loggerheads with the US and Russia taking effectively opposite views over the Ossetia conflict.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday said Russia should reverse its reinforcements to Ossetia, and withdraw all of its combat forces from Georgian territory.
Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin rejected the idea, saying Russian forces were fulfilling a 'perfectly legal' peacekeeping mission, and that the Kremlin's goal was to restore peace to the region.
It was the second failed Security Council session on Ossetia after a first attempt Friday. The Security Council reportedly was planning another emergency meeting on Saturday.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Lance, I think there is a vaccine for BDS. Visit your doctor.
In case you didn't know, this conflict - and Russia's pummeling of Georgia, has been going on since early 90's.
It has nothing to do with Bush.
...totally surrounded by trade partners, they could be the economic powerhouse of Asia. Instead, they do this.
How f--king moronic can you get??????
SP4: Aug 9th, 2008 - 16:52:51
How f--king moronic can you get??????
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www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia2
Moscow supports South Ossetia, which has had de facto independence from Georgia since 1992 after a bloody war. Many people in the region have Russian citizenship. Georgia claims South Ossetia as part of its territory.
Aside from the regional impact, the fighting threatens to increase tensions between Russia and the US. Georgia is a close American ally and Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said the US must bear some of the blame for arming and training Georgian soldiers.
Bush, speaking before heading to watch the US women's basketball team in Beijing, said he was 'deeply concerned about the situation', notably Russia's bombing inside Georgia.
(Some unintended irony in there, someplace ... remember this moment immortalized on YouTube?)
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20080518/ai_n25444971
True, Bush father and son - 41 and 43 as they sometimes refer to each other - haven't always handled their golf appearances deftly; 41 used to let reporters watch on the first tee. My wife, then as now a Reuters reporter, put her foot in it back in 1991 by asking Dad about Israel just as Junior was swinging. 'Don't talk while we're driving,' said the 41st President. 'We're trying to get some R&R round here.'
Eleven years later, Bush 43 put his foot in it. Asked for his reaction to a suicide bombing in Israel that killed nine people, he struck a jarring note. 'I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch my drive.' His problem is not being seen playing golf, but what he might blurt out while doing so.
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'The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia,' he said. 'They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis.
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www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5Xv5LXZ7t5c&refer=home
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ... implicitly accused the U.S., which has trained and equipped the Georgian military and backed the country's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of responsibility for the crisis. ``Whoever has been supplying arms to Georgia should field part of the blame,'' he said.
'It has nothing to do with Bush.'
It was SP4 that commented about the balls Bush has compared to other world leaders.
For some reason, hick U.S. citizens (rednecks) think a world leader should be full of strapping testicular enthusiasm while bombing muslims.
There is a big difference between Bush and this event:
Bush uses bombs made in the U.S. to kill muslims.
While Putin uses bombs made in Russia to kill people.
Bush would have more credibility with the U.N. regarding conflict if he had not gone out of his way to create so much conflict and war in the world. The U.N. diplomats must be rolling their eyes in utter contempt at the U.S. (in private ofcourse) for wanting to regulate Russia for actions that the U.S. does with such national pride.
www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Pat_Buchanan_Foreign_Policy.htm
Avoid the democratist temptation of the internationalists
With the Cold War ending, we should look, too, with a cold eye on the international set, never at a loss for new ideas to divert US wealth and power into crusades and causes having little or nothing to do with the true national interest of the United States. High among these is the democratist temptation [free the world], the worship of democracy as a form of governance and the concomitant ambition to see all mankind embrace it, or explain why not. Like all idolatries, democratism substitutes a false god for the real, a love of process [political pragmatism] for a love of country. The true national interests of the United States are not to be found in some hegemonic and utopian world order. Bush holds global democracy as a goal. This is a formula for endless conflict.'
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p. 13-17&34-35 Sep 1, 2004
www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/08/08/Oil-Slides-Despite-Georgia- Clashes
The fighting could endanger two major pipelines that run from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish coast through Georgia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs roughly 60 miles south of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. That pipeline has been closed since Tuesday because of an explosion in Turkey, but Reuters reported that the fire is expected to be extinguished by the weekend.
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www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/world/europe/10georgia.html?bl&ex=1218427200 &en=d1e8c093fe19df1b&ei=5087%0A
GORI, Georgia — The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward all-out war on Saturday as Russia prepared to land ground troops on Georgia’s coast and broadened its bombing campaign both within Georgia and in the disputed territory of Abkhazia.
The fighting that began when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of the 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 1980s war in Afghanistan.
Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared that Georgia was in a state of war, ordering government offices to work around the clock, and said that Russia was planning a full-scale invasion of his country.
page: 1
lanceAug 9th, 2008 - 16:16:01
OK, where is SP4. Finally a world leader with the balls of Bush standing up for what he believes in, whoopin ass in the spirit of a U.S. president.
Ride em cowboy! Lets whoop us some casualties with big ass bombs and teach those people a lesson!
Come on all you Bush proteges, now other world leaders are getting into the action and molding the world into their image just like the supreme being Bush! You must all be ecstatic! The next step to Armageddon is coming and the path to jesus is getting clearer!
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