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15 August 2008 Serbian defence officials denied selling weapons to Georgia, after Russia said assault rifles made in country’s arsenal Zastava were used in the recent conflict in South Ossetia. A defence ministry official said the weapons were most likely sold to Georgia by one of the other former Yugoslav republics, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The M70 assault rifle is an improved copy of former Soviet Kalashnikov AK47. Both share the same caliber of 7.62x39 mm, but the Yugoslav version has an integral rifle grenade sight and is of much better quality. --- n 2007, workers from Zastava Oruzje...

Compare, for instance, the geese of Kosovo and South Ossetia. Slobodan Milosevic's goose ended up percolating on the stove of an international tribunal in The Hague, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization stirring the pot. The Serb leader escaped being a convicted war criminal only by dying before the end of his trial. Having jumped from the sinking ship of communism to the leaky lifeboat of patriotism in the early 1990s, Milosevic tried but couldn't prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia. He then attempted to stave off the disintegration of Serbia by resisting the secession of Kosovo, a province with an...

• Saakashvili: a lie that Georgia started it; • Tbilisi ready for international investigation; • Merkel: no time for putting blame; President Saakashvili has strongly brushed off any suggestion that it was his administration to blame for armed conflict with Russia and said Georgia was ready for international investigation to find out what led to the conflict. At a joint news conference with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, President Saakashvili was asked to comment on allegations that he also was partially responsible for the crisis because of attacking breakaway South Ossetia. Saakashvili said in a response that it was Russia which...

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia announced to the West it would begin withdrawing forces from Georgia on Monday after a war that dealt a humiliating blow to the Black Sea state and raised fears for energy supplies to Europe. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had told him by telephone that forces would begin leaving around midday on Monday. Sarkozy, representing the European Union, said failure to pull out under a ceasefire deal would have "serious consequences" for ties with the EU. Sunday saw no evidence of fighting, but Russian troops continued to man...

What began as a skirmish has become a tragedy of global importance. As Russian soldiers brought a campaign of vicious reprisals to civilians, Georgia endured a nightmare. But those ten days also shook the world: Vladimir Putin has revealed his ambition to extend Moscow's power and challenge the military dominance of Europe and the US It began when five men stole into the rustic village of Tkviavi. With its plum trees, walnut groves and vines, Tkviavi was one of a jigsaw of picturesque villages beneath the hulking mountains of central Georgia. Up the road was Tskhinvali - the grim Soviet-style...

Update: Now we know where the western half of the Georgian Army is located - Kutaisi(5) Textbook invasion of Georgia. Tactical pause. Cease fire allegedly brokered. Russia insists on doing "recon" and defending against any attacks. Some firing continues. Reports of 30,000 refugees, mostly women and children, fleeing north to Russia (the men, apparently, are remaining behind as irregular militia fighting with the Russians). Other reports indicate at least 60,000 fled south east to Tbilisi from parts of Ossetia and the town of Gori. Time for a map to see how the situation is shaping up (Library, University of Texas,...

DOZENS of haggard Georgian captives were marched through the rebel city of South Ossetia today as separatists called on Tbilisi to recover the rotting corpses of its soldiers. The mostly elderly men - apparently all civilians - walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, escorted by armed guards. Locals stopped to take pictures on their mobile phones. Some pointed and laughed as the detainees marched through Tskhinvali. One woman said: "Those are the prisoners? But they're just old men!" Seventeen of the men were brought to the courtyard of the separatist territory's defence ministry to sweep...

Aug. 9, 2008 (EIRNS)—Following his service to his British masters in the Balkan wars of 1990-91, George Soros convened a series of meetings inside Serbia, that were to launch the "Rose Revolution," the "Orange Revolution," and the series of phony democracy insurgencies designed to undermine nation-states and create a "ring around Russia" for a future British-inspired confrontation. One of the key operations run by Soros, as indicated in a LaRouche Political Action Committee press release, "LaRouche Denounces `Obama's Godfather' George Soros," was to topple Georgia President Eduard Shevardnadze, and bring in Mikhail Saakashvili, the Colombia University-trained project of Soros's "Open...

The Russian invasion of Georgia was not a spontaneous response to what Moscow called “genocide” in South Ossetia but had been planned in detail since April, (snip) It is generally agreed that the spark for the war was the Nato summit in Bucharest in April at which Georgia was promised membership of the western alliance, (snip) By the start of August, Russian military engineers repaired the railway linking Russia to Abkhazia, allowing the sudden appearance of heavy military equipment that was later used to attack and loot the Georgian army base at Senaki, (snip) The Russian-backed separatists stepped up attacks...

Russia cemented gains made in its war with Georgia today when a peace deal, signed by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, allowed Russian peacekeepers to remain in the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and temporarily patrol outside the area.

Russia: After hearing the hard, cold facts of Russia's brutal occupation of Georgia, the West has no choice but to respond harshly to Vladimir Putin's regime. Failure to do so would only invite further attacks. Apologists for Russia say it really had no choice: Because of "genocide" in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia had to intervene. It was an "emergency." It wasn't.

I hope everyone has heard about the war in South Ossetia and Georgia. You probably are convinced by what the media reports, in particular that “Russia is the aggressor against innocent Georgia”. Our government is backing Georgia and also telling us about Russia’s aggression. But that is a lie. I have always made fun of the conspiracy theory people, but I find myself in the same position–criticizing the government and sounding crazy. But I cannot keep quite when such an injustice is going on; so please do not take my words as that of a crazy man who hates America–on...

The phone may not have rung at 3 a.m., but when word came of Russia's brutal invasion of neighboring Georgia, one of the two presidential candidates instinctively understood the adventure's long-range implications. And one did not. Indeed, the crisis in the Caucasus is giving voters real insight into how John McCain and Barack Obama might handle a foreign-policy emergency. In his first public reaction, Obama merely called on "Georgia and Russia to show restraint" - a reflexive exercise in what Sen. Joe Lieberman rightly labeled "moral neutrality." Then Obama called for a UN Security Council resolution condemning Russia - apparently...

Georgia Conflict - Open Thread #4 Posted by Gail the Actuary on August 15, 2008 - 10:08am Topic: Policy/PoliticsTags: georgia, pipelines, russia [list all tags] Russia has won in the conflict in Georgia, and we are in the process of sorting out what happens next. Various ones have written what they see happening. GEORGIA-RUSSIA CONFLICT SHOWS EU'S ENERGY VULNERABILITY But this week's offensive, during which British Petroleum shut down an oil pipeline and temporarily stopped pumping gas through Georgia, has called into question plans for a Eurasian corridor free from Russian interference. "The Caspian region is wondering what this...

THERE WAS little doubt about who was ruling Russia even before its armed incursion into Georgia this week. But the events of the past five days wiped away any pretence that President Dmitry Medvedev runs the country. The violence between Russia and the former Soviet republic, nearly coinciding with Medvedev's 100th day in office, has demonstrated how much control remains in the hands of his predecessor, prime minister Vladimir Putin. "I can tell you that recent developments between Russia and Georgia give us no proof that Dmitry Medvedev is an independent leader," said Evgenii Kiselev, editor in chief of TVI...

By Land, Air, Sea & PC, Georgia Tried to Match Russian Arsenal By David Axe Published on: August 13, 2008 Last Thursday, Georgian troops attacked pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Defying expectations and escalating the pitch of the battles to come, the Russian army fought back—with massive firepower. Tanks deployed, jets flew top cover, and the once-mothballed Black Sea fleet sailed toward Georgian ports, while Russian hackers took down Georgian networks. The fighting, which claimed as many as 2000 lives, represents a sort of hybrid war for the 21st century: a chaotic, fast-moving conflict that combines...

A Russian military convoy advanced to within 55 km (34 miles) of Tbilisi on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in the deepest incursion since conflict with Georgia erupted last week. The advance by some 17 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and about 200 soldiers coincided with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to secure Georgia's signature on a French-brokered peace plan to end the fighting. (snip) The vehicles advanced unimpeded by Georgian police and army stationed along the road. A Reuters correspondent saw a military ambulance, snipers and rocket-propelled grenades. The convoy was initially shadowed by three low-flying...

Russia’s invasion across an internationally recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms represents only the visible damage. As bad as the bloodying of Georgia is, the broader consequences are worse. The United States fiddled while Georgia burned, not even reaching the right rhetorical level in its public statements until three days after the Russian invasion began, and not, at least to date, matching its rhetoric with anything even approximating decisive action. This pattern is the very definition of a paper tiger. Sending Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice to...

On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm. "Scheunemann's work as a lobbyist poses valid questions about McCain's judgment in choosing someone who — and whose firm — are paid to promote the interests of other nations," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. "So one must...

An eyewitness account from the conflict zone.