Posted on 08/14/2008 2:32:40 AM PDT by maquiladora
GORI, Georgia (AP) - Plans for Russian troops to leave the key Georgian city of Gori appear to have broken down. Early Thursday, the Georgian Interior Ministry said Russian forces were leaving the city that they had taken the day before even though a cease-fire was in effect.
(snip)
But around midday, the Georgian officials left and some 15 SUVs filled with Georgian soldiers approached a Russian checkpoint on the city's outskirts, pointing guns at the Russian soldiers who then lay in the ground and appeared to prepare for combat.
Several Russian tanks then hurried to the position and the Georgians backed off to an elevated area some 200 meters away.
(Excerpt) Read more at pr-inside.com ...
Tensions still high it seems.
AFP confirms :
Russian forces have “changed their mind” about leaving the flashpoint Georgian town of Gori and are not withdrawing, a Georgian interior ministry spokesman told AFP.
“All night they said they would leave and now they have changed their mind. Georgian forces have stopped (going to Gori) to avoid clashes with the Russians,” Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
An AFP reporter on the road about 30 kilometres from the town witnessed from 15 to 20 Georgian armoured personnel carriers go through a police checkpoint towards Gori.
But he then saw them pulled up by the side of the road a little further on.
Mr Utiashvili said earlier that Georgian forces would retake control of Gori after a pledge from the Russian military that its forces would begin to withdraw.
http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/russian_forces_39still_in_gori39_554694
29 minutes ago
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian Foreign Ministry says more Russian troops enter Gori, Russians move into Poti
Dirty Soviets’ words are worth crap. They behave totally arbitrary. Their lying is worse than that of the islamists. I hope their forces will eventually be blown to bits, I don’t care by whom.
BBC : Explosions heard in Gori.
The Russians are going to string this out for a few more weeks. Russia is now snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Taunting the US and the other former Soviet republics is a huge mistake. More pictures of Russian armor rolling in Georgia proper does not help them. I would expect major new US/NATO military bases in the former Soviet Union soon. Is that what Putin wants?
They're calling Bush's bluff (not saying it is a bluff).
Bush has stated that we're going to bring in aid. So now Russia is going to hang onto what they've captured and use it for further bargaining.
They are destroying everything.
the Russians appear to be sending some mixed signals . . .
I’ve been wondering what it would take to close off that tunnel, leaving the Soviet force unable to be resupplied or reinforced on the ground. Isolating a sizable extended force and forcing its surrender is always bad for an invader, as the Nazis found out at Stalingrad.
IF Georgia blows the tunnel, then the Russians will claim that they are staying because the blown tunnel “prevents them from leaving.”
That’s how global diplomacy and propaganda work during wars, after all.
What Georgia is doing is instead the correct course of action:
1. resupplying
2. consolodating defensive positions after yielding ground
3. letting international pressure work against Russia
4. hitting the Russians outside of the Ossetia disputed region...or disengaging to see if the Russians advance further
Now granted, there could be a time/place for blowing the tunnel...but from then on the game changes substantially.
The question then becomes: do you want the game to change today, or later when you have more allies mobilized and more anti-tank missiles imported?
Keep in mind that the U.S. and the Ukraine have prevented Putin from blockading Georgia, so full modern arms imports can be purchased by Tbilsi.
One has to wonder if selling South African anti-tank missiles and Israeli anti-aircraft missiles has found a very willing buyer this week, somewhere in Africa/Middle-East...
Closing the tunnel is something to do just before winter. The point would be to keep the invading army there, just with its supplies cut off.
“the Russians appear to be sending some mixed signals . . .”
It makes one wonder how much control Moscow actually has over thier field units.
It was the Ossettian Russian Mob-run leadership that triggered this thing when they let the Russian militias shoot up the georgian villages on Ossettia.
Putin may have wanted this fight, but I think it went farther than he ever planned for.
“I’ve been wondering what it would take to close off that tunnel, leaving the Soviet force unable to be resupplied or reinforced on the ground.”
I think that’s Bush’s trump card in this situation...
A few criuse missles, and Russia’s armour and allies are dependent on Air Resupply..
that’s the thing about wars . . . they are easy start, most often they are difficult to stop
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