Totten: The Truth About Russia in Georgia

Here’s another great piece from Michael Totten, in which he gets to the bottom of The Truth About Russia in Georgia.

TBILISI, GEORGIA – 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 the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll even when the government is friendly as democratic as Georgia’s. I was lucky, though, that another regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms’ briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one tiny quibble.

(Hat tip:Cult Leader@LGF)

Totten in Tbilisi

Michael Totten has filed a Report from Tbilisi at City Journal.

Senator John McCain may have overstated things a bit when, shortly after the war started, he said, “We are all Georgians now.” But apparently even rank-and-file Russian soldiers view the Georgians and Americans as allies. Likewise, these simple Georgian country women seem to understand who their friends and enemies are. “I am very thankful to the West,” Maya said as her eyes welled up with tears. “They support us so much. We thought we were alone. I am so thankful for the support we have from the United States and from the West. The support is very important for us.” She tried hard to maintain her dignity and not cry in front of me, a foreign reporter in fresh clothes and carrying an expensive camera. “The West saved the capital. They were moving to Tbilisi. There was one night that was very dangerous. The Russian tanks were very close to the capital. I don’t know what happened, but they moved the tanks back.” And my translator, whose husband works for Georgia’s ministry of foreign affairs, made a similar guess that the West helped save the capital. “The night they came close to Tbilisi,” she said, “Bush and McCain made their strongest speeches yet. The Russians seemed to back down. Bush and McCain have been very good for us.”

(Hat Tip:Charles the Fraud)

More Russian Blustering

Via Drudge Report: Russia warns of response to US missile shield.

MOSCOW (AP) – Russia says its response to the further development of a U.S. missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the U.S. missile shield plans are clearly aimed at weakening Russia.

(#1 Contributor Charles @ LGF)

The Bear Digs In

The Russian government continues issuing statements about “pulling back” from Georgia, but the Russian military is digging in.

SACHKHERE, Georgia (AP) — Russian forces on Wednesday built a sentry post just 30 miles from the Georgian capital, appearing to dig in to positions deep inside Georgia despite pledges to pull back to areas mandated by a cease-fire signed by both countries.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says his troops will complete their pullback by Friday, but few signs of movement have been seen other than the departure of a small contingent that have held the strategically key city of Gori. …

Russian soldiers were setting up camp Wednesday in at least three positions in west-central Georgia. Further east, soldiers were building a sentry post of timber on a hill outside Igoeti, 30 miles from Tbilisi and the closest point to the capital where Russian troops have maintained a significant presence.

(Charles the Coward)

Russia Takes Georgians Prisoner, Seizes US Vehicles

Russia has taken a group of Georgian troops prisoner in the port city of Poti, and seized American Humvees.

POTI, Georgia – Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgian troops prisoner at a key Black Sea port in western Georgia on Tuesday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States.

(Hat tip: Charles the Coward)

An Extraordinary NATO Meeting

The US has called a meeting of NATO’s 26 foreign ministers to discuss the Georgia crisis.

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Russian and US officials ramped up the diplomatic war of words on Monday on the eve of an extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the crisis in Georgia.

The 26 NATO foreign ministers will hold their emergency meeting at the Alliance headquarters in the Belgian capital on Tuesday where they are set to offer help and support to Tbilisi while sending a strong message to Moscow over its military intervention there.

The extraordinary meeting was called by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is seeking a comprehensive review of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s relations with Moscow.

“Our long-term goal is not to have an adversarial relationship with Russia but it cannot be business as usual,” a senior US official in Brussels said.

Meanwhile, Russia claims they’re withdrawing from Georgia, but they’re doing the opposite.

(Hat tip:Chairman Comrade Charles)

How to Wear Down a Bear

The cease-fire agreement with Georgia is holding for now, but the Russian military is in no hurry to leave. Stuart Koehl has an interesting piece on possible military options for Georgia: The Pain Game.

This invasion has probably eaten deeply into Russian operations and maintenance funding, to say nothing of its war reserve stockpiles of ordnance and equipment. Russia must have bet on a short and fairly bloodless war, because it cannot afford—militarily or politically—a protracted slog. Not only doesn’t it have the equipment to do so, but it doesn’t have enough highly trained troops to sustain heavy casualties. The Russian military consists of a small, diamond-hard point on the end of a wooden stick. If the point shatters or wears down, you are left fighting the stick. (It should be noted that Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post, has been scathing in his assessment of the Russian army’s performance in Georgia, so by Western standards even the best of the Russian army would be considered rather mediocre).

The question is how to wear it down.

(Hat Tip:Charles)

Bolton on the Georgia Crisis

John Bolton analyzes the Russian invasion of Georgia: After Russia’s invasion of Georgia, what now for the West?

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 Tbilisi is touching, but hardly reassuring; dispatching humanitarian assistance is nothing more than we would have done if Georgia had been hit by a natural rather than a man-made disaster.

The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity, and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia. More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of aggression.

Even this dismal performance was enough to relegate Nato to an entirely backstage role, while Russian tanks and planes slammed into a “faraway country”, as Chamberlain once observed so thoughtfully. In New York, paralysed by the prospect of a Russian veto, the UN Security Council, that Temple of the High-Minded, was as useless as it was during the Cold War. In fairness to Russia, it at least still seems to understand how to exercise power in the Council, which some other Permanent Members often appear to have forgotten.

The West, collectively, failed in this crisis.

(Hat tip: Charles the Fake @ LGF)

Georgia Signs ‘Cease-Fire’ with Russia

Anyone want to guess how long this latest “cease-fire” agreement will last? Georgia president signs cease-fire with Russia.

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he signed a cease-fire agreement with Russia, which protects the former Soviet republic’s interests despite concessions to Moscow.

He said he will “never, ever surrender” in showdown with Russia, and he accused the West of inviting Russian aggression.

Russia, meanwhile, has not withdrawn any troops: Russian troops still deep inside Georgia.

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) – Russian troops in Georgia have allowed some humanitarian supplies into the city of Gori but their blockade continues.

Gori is key to the blockade. By holding the city, Russia has effectively cut Georgia in half because Gori sits along Georgia’s only significant east-west highway. Russian military vehicles are blocking the eastern road into the city. They have allowed in one Georgian bus filled with loaves of bread.

Officials say Russian troops are also in several other cities deep in Georgia. It’s not known if Russia will honor a cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull their forces back to the positions they held before fighting broke out last week.

(Hat tip – Charles the Coward @ LGF)