Russia now rolling into Georgian city with ground forces.
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/wo...in&oref=slogin

TBILISI, Georgia — Russian tanks and troops moved through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advanced on the city of Gori in central Georgia on Sunday night, for the first time directly assaulting a Georgian city with ground forces after three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.
Georgian tanks were dug into positions outside Gori and planning to defend the city, said Shota Utiashvili, an official in Georgia’s interior ministry. He said the city of Gori was coming under artillery and tank fire. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. “They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point” to retake the separatist regions, he said.
The Bush administration said Sunday that it would seek a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russian military actions in Georgia. And in a heated exchange with his Russian counterpart at the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, accused the Kremlin of seeking to oust Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
A column of Russian forces was also seeking Sunday night to enter Georgian territory from Abkhazia, another separatist enclave to the west, and Abkhaz fighters were massed at the boundary line, an Abkhaz official said in an interview.
The advance appeared to answer the question on which the conflict had been pivoting: Would Russia simply occupy the two separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or would it push into Georgia, raising the possibility of a full-scale invasion?
Gori, about a 45-minute drive south from the capital of South Ossetia, Tskinvali, sits in a valley that is the main route connecting the east and west halves of Georgia.
Mr. Utiashvili said the Russians were “trying to cut the country in half.” He said that if they tried to occupy Georgia, “there will probably be guerilla warfare all over the country.”
In Washington, American officials reacted with deepening alarm to Russia’s military activities on Sunday. Georgian troops had tried to disengage, but the Russians had not allowed them.
“The Georgians told them, ‘We’re done. Let us withdraw,” one American military official said. “But the Russians are not letting them withdraw. They are pursuing them, and people are seeing this.”
The official said that it appeared that the Kremlin’s objectives, at a minimum, had extended beyond securing the enclaves and now included the destruction of the Georgian armed forces, with an aim of intensifying the domestic pressure on Saakashvili.
“The Russians have gained all of their military objectives,” the American official said. “This is not about military objectives. This is about a political objective — removing a thorn in their side.”
Russia had also doubled the number of its troops in Abkhazia to about 6,000, and Russian warships from the Black Sea fleet were off the territory’s coast. A column of Russian tanks was negotiating with Georgian officials to enter the Georgian city of Zugdidi, just south of Abkhazia, the Abkhaz official said.
Russia also bombed the Tblisi international airport shortly before Bernard Kouchner was due to arrive to mediate on behalf of the European Union. Only light damage was reported.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked through the night Saturday with other Bush administration officials on a Security Council resolution. American diplomats said that they did not want an actual Security Council vote on the resolution until Tuesday or so, the better to draw out the debate and publicly shame the Russian government. While the resolution will carry no punitive weight, and is almost sure to be vetoed by Russia, a permanent Council member, the hope is that it could create more pressure for a cease-fire, officials said.
Meanwhile, Georgian and Western diplomatic officials said that Georgia had offered a cease-fire proposal to Russia, though Russian officials did not acknowledge receiving such an offer.
A senior American official said that the United States had conveyed the details of a cease-fire proposal by President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to Russia’s acting ambassador in Washington late Saturday night, and that there briefly were indications that the Kremlin wanted to talk directly with the Georgian president.
“At midnight last night we got from the Russians that they would welcome a call from Saakashvili,” the official said.
But the day passed, and through Sunday night in Georgia, the Kremlin had not taken Mr. Saakashvili’s call and negotiations had not proceeded, an advisor to Georgia’s president said.
“He has asked to talk with Putin, and he has asked to talk to Medvedev,” he said, of Saakashvili. “But they have refused.”
The American official also said that Georgia had managed on Sunday to provide its cease-fire proposals to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, but there was no reply.


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...orgia2.600.jpg
Russian ground forces on Sunday passed a car with a South Ossetian license plate near the town of Dzhava in South Ossetia.


Let the imperialistic and barbaric Russian campaign continue.. :rolleyes:

This could get out of hand and fast... I hope they settle this mess before the US decides to get involved... If they dont, then I am willing to bet, I wont be sent to Afghanistan after all... it will be somewhere in the eastern bloc. Which is fine with me, I got a score to settle with the ruskies... One of my great uncles was killed by a russian mig in korea, so send me over.

I think we are already involved in a way, we airlifted Georgian troops out of Iraq to take them back home. I wonder if this has anything to do with Russian designs on the oil pipeline from Baku through Georgia...

I am watching this more than I am the Olympics at this point.

No it has to do with the fact that Georgia has been very supportive of the US and have over 2,000 soldiers in Iraq which considering the fact they have an army of some 40,000 is quite amazing and shows how supportive they’ve been of our efforts in Iraq AND Afghanistan.

The Russians have an army of hundreds of thousands not to mention the Spetsnaz and other special ops forces which are the ones that’ll be primarily sent to Georgia. For Georgians every soldier really does count - they aren't naïve; they know we won't help them militarily.

Yeah, I was trying to make two points, albeit quite poorly. 1- We already are invovled in this. Not much, but airlifting troops back to Georgia is something. I agree, there is no way we are going to do much else, nor will the U.N. or anyone else for that matter.

2-I was trying to be a bit sarcastic with this one, I think the Russian advance was purely a grab for the oil pipeline.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see what happens.

It's Finland all over again.

Straight out of a Dale Brown novel, too—Russians decide to take back a former Soviet republic in great force, and so forth. The only thing that's lacking is McLanahan and his bombers :)

It appears that this nasty little war is already approaching "over"—Georgia is losing or has already lost.

I think you were right - they want to control the oil & gas and they want it to flow through their and not Georgian pipelines - it looks like they’ve achieved that objective already.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/12/markets/bp_pipeline.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes

I don’t think the Russians will attempt to take the whole Republic of Georgia – the international opinion would be too much to handle. Instead they'll take pieces of if (South Ossetia and Abhazia) in effect dividing Georgia into two parts.

…and the world will accept that ‘small loss for peace’ – does anyone remember Neville Chamberlain and Sudetenland?

For those who don’t, in September 1938 the UK, France, and Italy negotiated with the Nazi Germany on behalf of Czechoslovakia (without ever asking for the approval from the Czechoslovakian government) and they basically gave away the western parts of Czechoslovakia to Germany since there was a large German population there (see any parallels?).

When Chamberlain triumphantly returned to the UK he infamously proclaimed they created “peace in our time” thinking that Hitler would now be satisfied with the ‘lebensraum’ or living space for the Germans they’d created.

This appeasement policy backfired though as only 6 months later Germany occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia. Exactly one year after the ‘Appeasement Pact’ was signed - September 1, 1939 - Germany invaded Poland and WWII had begun (that’s the date most Europeans use as the start of the World War II)

I mention this because there are so many parallels here except now it’s the Russians who are craving more land to help their “poor citizens who are stranded in foreign lands”.

Look at this drawing made by a Russian cartoonist in the late 1930s. It shows the Western powers caving in to Hitler and giving away parts or all of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. The banner says “на восток” which means “to the East.”

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-Munchen1.jpg

How ironic, today we could change the drawing to show a Soviet star (or Russian star since Putin made the Soviet star official again) instead of a swastika and change the label to “на запад” or to the West.

What’s that saying? “Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it…” :(