Quote:
Originally Posted by mightypeon  If Russia picked a fight, why was Georgia making progress at the start of the war?
I mean, if Russia would pick a fight with Finland. The Finns, for all their resilience, would not capture St. Petersburg at day one of hostilities.
The Georgians did in fact, capture the hostile capital of South Ossetia. I would label suprise as the only way they could have achieved this.
If they suprised Russia than it was not Russia picking a fight there.
Sakashvilis gamble did not pay off, and now he is trying to win via the media what he could not win via his military. |
Fighting between the Georgians and the South Ossetia separatist rebels has been going on for over a decade. In fact, you could say that the situation in Georgia has been one of war interrupted by bouts of peace. All through this, the Georgians have offered South Ossetia a peace deal under which they would be given autonomy within a federal state. But no, the separatist leaders will only accept full independence.
There seems to have been scant media coverage of the fighting that broke out immediately prior to the invasion of S Ossetia. It seems that on 1st August, fighting, in the form of shelling broke out along the border. Perhaps that was the final straw for the Georgians.
This whole situation can be put in better context by reminding ourselves of the key events leading to this situation:
November 1989 - South Ossetia declares autonomy from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, triggering three months of fighting.
December 1990 - Georgia and South Ossetia begin a new armed conflict which lasts until 1992.
June 1992 - Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian leaders meet in Sochi, sign an armistice and agree the creation of a tripartite peacekeeping force of 500 soldiers from each entity.
November 1993 - South Ossetia drafts its own constitution.
November 1996 - South Ossetia elects its first president.
December 2001 - South Ossetia elects Eduard Kokoity as president.
In 2002 he asks Moscow to recognise the republic's independence and absorb it into Russia.
January 2005 - Russia gives guarded approval to Georgia's plan to grant
broad autonomy to South Ossetia in exchange for dropping its bid for independence.
November 2006 - South Ossetia overwhelmingly endorses its split with Tbilisi in a referendum. Georgia's prime minister says this is part of a Russian campaign to stoke a war.
April 2007 - Georgia's parliament approves a law to create a temporary administration in South Ossetia,
raising tension with Russia.
June 2007 - South Ossetian separatists say Georgia attacked Tskhinvali with mortar and sniper fire. Tbilisi denies this.
October 2007 - Talks hosted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe between Georgia and South Ossetia break down.
March 2008 - South Ossetia asks the world to recognise its independence from Georgia following the West's support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia.
March 2008 - Georgia's bid to join NATO, though unsuccessful,
prompts Russia's parliament to urge the Kremlin to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
April 2008 -
South Ossetia rejects a Georgian power-sharing deal, insists on full independence.
South Ossetia is not an independent state. It is not recognised as such by the UN or any country in the world. This being the case, Russia can only be regarded as the aggressor, since the problem of South Ossetia is an internal one.
There is little doubt that Russia has been itching for this fight. It even managed to manafacture an excuse by dishing out Russian passports to half the population of S. Ossetia (knowing that when the fight came they could claim to be protecting their own citizens).
Ironic isn't it, that Putin accuses Georgia of invading a sovereign state. What bullshit. That's precisely what he has done!