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"The 'entente cordiale' did not work," Russia's NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin has said, referring to accords between Britain and France signed in the early 20th century that put a line under centuries of hostility and conflict. "Relations should now be pragmatic," he said. "The good performance of our army in Ossetia has already impressed our partners," he added. "We should do everything to uphold this impression and end once and forever any temptation by our partners to resolve any problems by force.."

Major Malkhaz Dumbatze was in a celebratory mood. His 14 Georgian tanks had just taken control of the rebel South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, and he was already looking forward to a trip to Israel to study new battle command systems. The jets flying over the city, where his men were mopping up Ossetian snipers, he took to be Georgian fighters. Major Dumbatze is still going to Israel, but now it is to have reconstruction surgery on his legs. The aircraft he had spotted were in fact Russian, and one of them dropped two bombs on his armoured unit. Speaking with...

AUGUST 29, 2008 Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the now seperated Provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has officially recognized as indepenednet, is now proceedingat a rapid pace. Georgian homes and villages are being burned and raised and Georgian civilians are being forced to leave...many with nothing but what they can wear and carry, if that. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced that Georgia was officially breaking diplomatic ties with Russia, ordering its diplomats and staff to leave Moscow and return to Georgia. The action comes as a direct Georgian response to Moscows recognition of its two Provinces...

The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) released date on deployment of the Russian military on various locations on the Georgian territory as of August 27. “All locations and numbers given here are double-checked,” the ministry said. “MIA could not verify all information available and the actual number of both Russian military equipment and personnel on the ground may be much higher.” Below is the data as provided by the Georgian MIA: Locations of the Russian illegal check-points in the Eastern Georgia, including Shida Kartli, other adjacent areas of “South Ossetia” and “South Ossetia” itself according to the MIA sources...

Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has signalled that it will formally seek to merge with Russia. This move would amount to Russia’s annexation of an area of another state and the redrawing of the map of a corner of Europe. South Ossetia, with a largely Russian population of only 70,000, has no viable future as an independent state and observers believe that its only realistic option is to join its giant neighbour. President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia discussed this option with his South Ossetian counterpart, Eduard Kokoity, earlier this week during a meeting in Moscow. Znaur Gassiyev, the Speaker...

A Georgian Foreign Ministry official said Friday Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in Georgia. Nato Chikovani says Georgia will withdraw its staff on Saturday, following a parliamentary vote in favor of the move on Thursday. Russian news agencies cite Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nestrenko as criticizing the move, saying it will not benefit bilateral relations. Georgia is angry at the lingering presence of Russian troops in Georgia despite Russia's promise to withdraw in accordance with an EU-brokered cease-fire. Also on Friday, officials in South Ossetia said...

Russia and South Ossetia will sign a military agreement next week allowing Russia to set up a military base in the breakaway region, Tarzan Kokoity, the acting vice-speaker of the South Ossetian parliament, said on August 29. He said that the agreement was expected to be signed on September 2, Interfax news agency reported. Interfax quoted an unnamed “military-diplomatic source” in Moscow as saying that Russia was planning to establish three military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In particular, he said, the plan envisaged bases in Gudauta and Ochamchire in Abkhazia. Georgia has long claimed that the Gudauta military...

Russian-backed paramilitaries are “ethnically cleansing” villages on Georgian soil, refugees and officials told The Times yesterday. South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless buffer zone set up by the Russian Army just north of Gori. The violence, close to the border with the breakaway republic recognised by Russia this week as independent, has prompted a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tbilisi. People who had started to return to their villages in the area are now fleeing for a second time, joined by many elderly people who...

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea. Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets. Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert. "They have been told...

AFTER barely 100 days in office, the soft-spoken Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, has been cast in the unlikely role of war leader. His initial job appeared to be as Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. But he quickly got a taste for war. On Tuesday August 26th he stood beneath the two-headed Russian eagle and solemnly announced the Kremlin’s decision to recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The decision, Mr Medvedev argued, was forced on him by Georgia’s “genocide” against South Ossetia. But the argument is spurious. It is true that, in the early 1990s, when Georgia was barely a state,...

Both sides had an interest in escalating the conflict, say political analysts. Russia wanted to show that Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was an irresponsible firebrand who could not be trusted with the responsibilities of Nato membership. Georgia, meanwhile, wanted to paint Russia as the imperial aggressor it has traditionally been in the Caucasus, which would have strengthened Tbilisi’s case for Nato membership. Each can be seen to have acted swiftly, with a great deal of preparation, later trying to make their behaviour appear spontaneous. Mr Saakashvili, despite repeated denials, clearly drew first. But Russia was not far behind, indicating that...

TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AP) — The interior minister of the separatist-held region of South Ossetia says his forces have shot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane. Mikhail Mindzayev said the drone was shot down over South Ossetia on Thursday by local forces.

'Anybody who thinks that Moscow didn't plan this invasion, that we in Georgia caused it gratuitously, is severely mistaken," President Mikheil Saakashvili told me during a late night chat in Georgia's presidential palace this weekend. "Our decision to engage was made in the last second as the Russian tanks were rolling -- we had no choice," Mr. Saakashvili explained. "We took the initiative just to buy some time. We knew we were not going to win against the Russian army, but we had to do something to defend ourselves." I had just returned from Gori, which was still under the...

<p>TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug. 16 -- Nine days ago, late in the afternoon of Aug. 7, Georgian tanks, artillery and infantry began moving out of bases in Georgia and toward South Ossetia, a zone long held by separatists who are backed by Moscow.</p>

PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev's surprise decision to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia was met with cries of joy in the breakaway territories, dismay in Tbilisi and deep unease among Russia's neighbours in eastern Europe. In Sukhumi, Abkhazia's seaside capital, Maxim Gunjia, the deputy foreign minister, said that the "people were celebrating in the streets". In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's war-torn centre, reporters said the air was filled with the demonstrators marking independence by firing Kalashnikovs and hunting guns. However, in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, officials condemned the Russian decision as "unconcealed annexation". Their concern was shared by other former Soviet Union countries....

Russian-backed paramilitaries are ethnically cleansing villages inside a buffer zone within Georgia, refugees from the area and officials in the nearby town of Gori told The Times today. The South Ossetian militiamen have torched houses, beaten elderly people and even murdered civilians in the lawless zone just north of Gori, set up by the Russian army, close to the border with the breakaway republic whose independence Russia recognised this week, locals said. The violence has triggered a new wave of refugees into Gori, 40 miles north of Tblisi. People who had started to return to their villages in the area...

Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West Last updated at 16:47pm on 27.08.08 Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia. The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain. And Moscow also...

Russia sought to bolster its diplomatic position in its stand off with the West over Georgia today by dispatching President Dmitry Medvedev to meet his Chinese counterpart. Mr Medvedev was to meet President Hu Jintao at a Central Asian security summit in Tajikistan in an encounter that is unlikely to yield the sort of criticism that Russia has attracted from Europe and America over its actions in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. China has kept a diplomatic silence over events in Georgia so far. Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang refused to endorse Russia's decision to recognise the...

President Medvedev of Russia is threatening a military response to the deployment of an American missile defense system in Poland, which was once within the Kremlin's zone of control. Mr. Medvedev, who yesterday recognized the independence claims of two separatist Georgian provinces, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that, though Russia is not seeking a resumption of the Cold War, it is "not afraid" of such an outcome. President Bush condemned Mr. Medvedev's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, and Western diplomats and politicians said Russia was risking international isolation and other consequences.

Russia's relations with the west plunged to their most critical point in a generation yesterday when the Kremlin built on its military rout of Georgia by recognising the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Declaring that if his decision meant a new cold war, then so be it, President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree conferring Russian recognition on Georgia's two secessionist regions. The move flouted UN security council resolutions and dismissed western insistence during the crisis of the past three weeks on respecting Georgia's territorial integrity and international borders. Last night, Medvedev accused Washington of shipping...

PARIS (AP) — French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Wednesday accused Russia of breaking international law by recognizing the independence of the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Kouchner also warned in an interview with Europe 1 radio of signs of ethnic cleansing by Russian forces in South Ossetia. (snip) Asked about his own earlier comments warning of a risk of ethnic cleansing by Russian forces in the territories, Kouchner responded: "I hope that didn't happen overnight. But there has already been evidence that the armies are pushing away the Ossetians who favored Georgia, and in a certain way,...

Diplomacy: Russia's decision to recognize the independence of two breakaway provinces inside Georgia is meant to intimidate its neighbors, Europe and the U.S. It requires a tough response from the U.S. and its allies.Russia says this week's recognition of tiny South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two provinces inside Georgia, was to defend their sovereignty from unprovoked assaults by Georgia's military. This is utterly false. As a remarkable piece of first-person reporting by Web journalist Michael Totten shows, Russia planned out its invasion well before hostilities began. It's a pattern of behavior stretching back to the early 1990s. Nor did Georgia start...

TBILISI, Georgia (AFP) - Cindy McCain, wife of US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, on Tuesday visited refugees in Georgia, insisting the timing of her trip had no link to the Democratic convention. Cindy McCain visited a school and former government building housing hundreds of Georgians forced to leave their homes for the relative safety of Tbilisi in the conflict with Russia. "Each time I see and talk with refugees it breaks my heart," McCain told reporters after visiting the two camps which are supported by the World Food Programme (WFP). "The only place these people want to be is...

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion. Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At...

<p>EU leaders have condemned as illegal Russia's decision to recognise the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while Georgian rebels compared the move to the creation of Kosovo earlier this year.</p> <p>The Russian decision is "absolutely unacceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said while visiting Tallinn on Tuesday (26 August), AFP reports. "It is our position that the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia does not conform to international law." "Georgia's independence and territorial integrity ... cannot be changed by decree from Moscow," UK foreign minister David Miliband said, while announcing he will visit Ukraine on Wednesday to build the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression." The French EU presidency called the move "regrettable," while Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini departed from Rome's normally Russia-friendly tone, saying "It's a unilateral decision that doesn't have international support that makes it legally binding." Nordic states also blasted Moscow, with Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt calling the act a "deliberate violation of international law," and Denmark's Per Stig Moller declaring "unconditional support for Georgia's territorial integrity." Eastern European capitals lined up in support of Georgia, with the Czech republic in a statement calling Russia's action "an attack on the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia." With an emergency EU summit on EU-Russia relations tabled for next week, Estonian President Andrus Ansip said NATO should now offer road maps for the membership of both Georgia and Ukraine and called for a break in relations with Russia. The proposal clashed with Germany, however, with Ms Merkel also saying Europe should maintain contact with its eastern neighbour despite events. Georgia also reacted furiously. "This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia," said Georgia's deputy foreign minister, Giga Bokeria.</p>

Russia has recognized the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday. Here are the first reactions to Russia's decision. (UPDATED) ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE (OSCE)"The recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia violates fundamental OSCE principles."Russia should follow OSCE principles by respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia. Russia should immediately withdraw all troops from Georgia and implement the ceasefire agreement… The international community could not accept unilaterally established buffer zones.”"Russia should follow OSCE principles by respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia. Russia should immediately withdraw...

Just hours before Russia escalated the crisis by recognising the independence of two separatist Georgian provinces, Mr Saakashvili said Russian forces had advanced to the strategic Akhalgori heights 10 miles from Tbilisi. He warned that Georgia would respond with force if its capital was attacked and told the West to act more forcefully against Russian aggression. "They are trying to take the heights of Akhalgori," he told reporters at a briefing this morning. "This is the most worrying thing at the moment. They would be within 20km of Tbilisi. "We are in a very precarious situation." The president said that...

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has escalated tensions between his country and the West by formally recognising the independence of the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Britain has said it "categorically rejects" the decision, which the French foreign ministry has denounced as "regrettable". Georgia's deputy foreign minister described the move as an "unconcealed annexation" of Georgian territory. "I have signed decrees on the recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of South Ossetia and the independence of Abkhazia," Mr Medvedev said on state television this morning after a vote in the Russian parliament. Western countries have insisted that...

Georgia condemns announcement after Medvedev signs decree on independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia Russia today stepped up its defiance of the west by wasting little time in recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia's two breakaway provinces. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said he had signed decrees to that effect, just weeks after Russia and Georgia fought a short war over South Ossetia. "I have signed decrees on the recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of South Ossetia and the independence of Abkhazia," Medvedev said in a televised announcement, in a move bound to escalate...

MOSABRUNI, Georgia, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Georgian police withdrew from the disputed village of Mosabruni on the border of South Ossetia after Russian forces moved into it, a Reuters reporter at the scene said on Tuesday. Police, which manned checkpoints in the village where government troops faced South Ossetian separatists in a tense stand-off for several days, left and moved deeper into Georgian territory after Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers rolled into Mosabruni.

US President George W Bush has urged Russia not to recognise Georgia's two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. Mr Bush's comments came after Russia's parliament passed a non-binding motion calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to support the enclaves' independence bid. The US has said such recognition would be contrary to international law and has pledged to stand by Georgia. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war this month over the two provinces. Moscow launched a counter-attack after Tbilisi tried to retake South Ossetia from rebels by military force. The US and a number of Western...

Russia: Rebel Georgian regions are independent MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday he has signed an order recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions in the Republic of Georgia. On Monday, both houses of Russian parliament voted unanimously for such recognition. The Federation Council, the upper chamber, voted 130-0 and the Duma, the lower chamber, voted was 447-0 with three lawmakers absent. That vote was rejected by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who called it an attempt by Russia to "justify the occupation" by its forces, which remain in parts of Georgia. U.S....

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia will recognise the independence of Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He made the announcement in Sochi following a unanimous vote for the republics’ independence by both houses of the Russian Parliament in Moscow on Monday. The leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Sergey Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, have reiterated that “they will never agree to remain within Georgia” at an emergency session of the Federation Council. Meanwhile, Georgia has repeatedly said it will never surrender its territories.

However, on the night of August 7, when Georgian forces began their rocket and artillery barrage of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, Brigadier General Mamuka Kurashvili, the chief of Georgian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, went on Georgian television to say Georgia's "power-wielding bodies" had "decided to restore constitutional order" in the breakaway region. ... General Kurashvili also did not mention Russian armour.... The dispute is about more than words. Many leaders, including those who strongly back Georgia in its fight with Russia, accuse Mr Saakashvili of having responded to the shelling of Georgian villages by South Ossetian separatists by undertaking...

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ex-Soviet Moldova on Monday against repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back control of a breakaway region. Russia sent peacekeepers to Moldova in the early 1990s to end a conflict between Chisinau and its breakaway Transdniestria region and is trying to mediate a deal between the two sides. Transdniestria, one of a number of "frozen conflicts" on the territory of the former Soviet Union, mirrored the standoff between Georgia and its rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia until they erupted in war earlier this month. Russia...

Russia may hit USA very hard below the belt 25.08.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru US leading experts analyzed punishing opportunities of both Russia and the West after the recent armed conflict in Georgia. Specialists came to conclusion that the list of potential Western sanctions pales in comparison with what Moscow could do in response. However, the US administration hopes that Russia will not resort to radical measures not to harm its own financial and security interests. The US administration has issued yet another warning to Moscow recently claiming that Russia’s actions in Georgia would question the future of its WTO bid, as...

TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgian and South Ossetian forces were in a tense stand-off on Monday over control of a disputed village on the edge of the breakaway region, according to Georgian and separatist officials. Georgian and Russian troops fought a brief war in the region earlier this month and are now observing a fragile ceasefire. Georgian officials said the village of Mosabruni was not part of separatist-controlled territory and alleged the separatists were planning a provocation against Georgian special forces who had been deployed there. The separatist administration said the village was within South Ossetia and the Georgian forces...

Georgia is planning “a military attack” on Abkhazia with the aim of capturing the breakaway region’s capital, Sokhumi, Anatoly Nogovitsin, the deputy chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, said. “We possess serious intelligence data about it,” Nogovitsin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying at a news conference in Moscow on August 25. He, however, declined to elaborate further into details, saying that he would do so at a news conference on August 26. Nogovitsin, who has held daily press conferences since the armed conflict with Georgia began, said that Georgian forces were continuing efforts...

WASHINGTON —  President Bush is dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia, setting up a high-ranking diplomatic mission to an ally reeling from a short, intense war. The White House announced Monday that Cheney will head abroad on Sept. 2 for stops in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy. The vice president's office described Cheney's trip only in the broadest terms, saying Bush wants his No. 2 to consult with key partners on matters of mutual interest. The dominant attention will likely fall on Georgia, where conflict with Russia has reignited Cold War tensions. Cheney will hold talks in Georgia with President...

The war between Russia and Georgia -- and particularly what Russia aspires to gain from this showdown -- may have future consequences for the situation in the Middle East. It may also have the potential to alter the existing world order and restore a condition somewhat similar to what we had in the Cold War era. A recent statement by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov caught my attention: "We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual...

A major fire-damaged oil pipeline carrying crude from Azerbaijan to Turkey has returned to normal operations, BP's spokesperson in Baku said on Monday. The first cargo would be lifted on Tuesday. "We ramped up the flow over the weekend, and we're still ramping now but effectively we're back to normal operations," said Tamam Bayatlı, the spokesperson of BP, which operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Bayatli also confirmed that the Baku-Supsa pipeline remained closed as a "precaution" given the security situation in Georgia but that the situation was under constant assessment and the pipeline could be reopened as soon as it...

Russia's upper house of parliament has voted unanimously for a resolution calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. The Federation Council voted 130 for the resolution with none against. Both houses of the Russian parliament are scheduled to discuss the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia at extraordinary sessions today. France, which brokered a ceasefire in the conflict which has killed hundreds of people and made thousands more homeless, has called a September 1 meeting of EU leaders to discuss the crisis and review relations with Russia. German Chancellor...

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has dismissed former Vostok battalion leader Sulim Yamadayev, a powerful former Chechen rebel at odds with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, after he fought Georgian troops in South Ossetia, a source in the Chechen administration said Friday. Serdyukov signed an order discharging Yamadayev, who had a federal warrant out for his arrest on murder charges but, in murky circumstances, ended up fighting with Russian troops in their defeat of Georgian forces over control of Tskhinvali, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media. The order...

German military attache found Russian response in Georgia 'appropriate' IANS Sunday 24th August, 2008 The German military attache in Moscow described the Russian military response in Georgia as 'appropriate' in an internal document, according to a report in the Sunday edition of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). 'The extent of the use of military force by the Russian side appears - seen from here and despite reports to the contrary from Georgia and the picture conveyed by the media - not inappropriately high,' Brigadier General Heinz G. Wagner wrote Aug 11. According to the report, the general said...

The blast deals a serious blow to Georgia’s efforts to recover from its ten-day war over South Ossetia in the face of the continuing Russian military presence.

The store of arms and shells, which the Russians took away from Georgian military bases, exploded in Tskhinvali this morning. As it was reported, over 200 shells exploded today. The Russian occupants were keeping the stolen armament on the territory of the Tskhinvali Auto Transport facilities. Russian NTV Channel reports one Russian soldier was injured as the result of the blast.

TBILISI, Georgia - A train carrying oil products hit a land mine near Georgia's strategic central city of Gori on Sunday, causing at least two tanker cars to burst into flames, a government official said. A television report however said 10 tanker cars were on fire about 6 miles east of Gori. Television footage showed large clouds of black smoke billowing from the site. There were no immediate reports casualties, though a television report said two houses were damaged and windows were blown out. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili blamed Russia for the blast.

Gerhard Schroeder under fire after blaming Georgia for 'detonating' war with Russia Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been told he should "keep his mouth shut" after appearing to support Russia's invasion of Georgia. By Tony Paterson in Berlin Last Updated: 11:54PM BST 23 Aug 2008 The 64-year-old Social Democrat already has a reputation as a Kremlin apologist and was widely criticised for taking a £200,000 a year job with the Russian energy company Gazprom after he left office in 2005. Not only is he friends with the Russian premier and former president Vladimir Putin - whom he has referred...

TBILISI (AFP) - Russian forces were on Saturday still deployed deep inside Georgia, keeping their grip on a strategic port city, as Moscow brushed aside Western accusations it was failing to abide by a ceasefire deal. ADVERTISEMENT Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from the heart of Georgia on Friday, saying it had now fufilled all obligations under a French-brokered agreement aimed at ending the two-week-old conflict. But Russian troops were still controlling access to the western port of Poti and also established a checkpoint just 10 kilometres (seven miles) north of the key city of Gori, AFP...

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Russia would violate the ceasefire agreement by setting up checkpoints or permanent facilities in Georgia, the White House said on Saturday as Russian soldiers were seen in the Georgian port city of Poti. ADVERTISEMENT Russia has said it has complied with the ceasefire pact by withdrawing most of its forces but continued to patrol the Georgian port city on the Black Sea and Russian soldiers were manning a checkpoint on the main road into the city but were not stopping traffic. "Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the agreement," said White House spokesman...