Russia/Georgia Situation News & Updates, page 320

Yep. You hear of artillery shelling in early August and it certainly brings around the Deja vu. To prove it, check out Wikipedia's pre-war description of the situation of the build up to the War:

South_Ossetia_War_2008


From the Link: (I've emboldened what happened then as a comparison to the fact it is also happening now)

Pre-war clashes

Clashes and shelling between the Georgian and Ossetian forces in early August led to the deaths of six Ossetians and five Georgians; each side accused the other of opening fire first, in what was the worst violence in years. During the week the fighting intensified.[112][113] On 3 August, the Russian foreign ministry warned that an extensive military conflict was about to erupt. According to a Spiegel article, officials in European governments and intelligence agencies assumed that the warning concerned Saakashvili's plans for an invasion of South Ossetia, plans which had been completed earlier. Three days later, the evacuation of Ossetian women and children to Russia was completed, as some 35,000 people were successfully evacuated. [19][114] Starting with the night of 6–7 August there were continuous artillery fire exchanges between the two sides.[7][19][115]

[edit on 2-8-2009 by Regensturm]

[edit on 2-8-2009 by Regensturm]

reply to post by Shirakawa

---

Hi Shirakawa/
Maybe the whole purpose of these talks is to 'divert' attention from the real issues at hand?

ICXC NIKA
helen

UPDATE: Saakashvili: Moscow has plans to invade Georgia

The Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has shrugged off Russian accusations that Tbilisi was the side 'provoking' a new conflict ahead of an August 7 anniversary of last year's war.

Saakashvili in an interview with Reuters published on Sunday, reversed the charges, saying it is the ex-Soviet state that fears Moscow's plans for a pretext to invade the country.

He went on to stress that Georgia had no plans for reclaiming the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which claimed independence following a brief five-day war in August 2008.

Total lie. He always said since last year that he would retake those regions...



BIG UPDATE: THIS MAY BE IT.

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moving towards Georgia

Intelligence sources of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate reported that a convoy of military vehicles passed on the eve on Saturday at 7 am local through the town of Engels, Saratov Oblast.

The convoy consisted of up 300 tanks, BMPs, BTRs, as well as various multiple launch rocket systems of "Grad (Hail)" and "Uragan (Hurricane)".

The operational sources report that the military convoy is moving towards Georgia.

We would like to remind that after Russian threats to attack Georgia, made the day before, many experts do not rule out that Moscow is preparing a new military incursion.

Thus Russian military expert Pavel Felgengauer predicts military operations and states that probability of beginning of war is approximately 80 %.

[edit on 2-8-2009 by Vitchilo]

reply to post by Vitchilo

---

Even though the source is what it is, I think your post deserves more attention! I'm looking forward to see how this will develop during the next days or even hours.

Yeah I don't know the source..anyway more updates:

Update 1: S.Ossetians bring 2,500 lawsuits against Georgia in ECHR, ICC

Update 2: Eduard Kokoity: I rule out a new Georgian aggression

Update 3: This one report push us even closer to war... Georgia in Russia land-grab claim

Georgia has accused Russia of trying to seize more of its territory as the anniversary of last year's brief war between the two countries approaches.

Tbilisi said Russian troops had been moving border posts along the boundary between Georgia and its Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Georgia's foreign ministry called Sunday's moves "extremely alarming".

Russian troops had entered the village of Kveshi near South Ossetia and put up new border posts, the Georgian foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday, condemning the alleged move as a deliberate provocation.

Another source for that... Russia, Georgia tension flares

The Georgian Foreign Ministry has accused Russia of violating its territory by expanding the South Ossetian border deeper into Georgian territory.

On Sunday, the ministry said that Russian forces had newly demarcated the disputed "village of Kveshi (in the) Gori district…with the aim of shifting the so-called 'border'," AFP reported.

This could start a war... but REMEMBER, what was the credibility of Georgian reports in last year war... ALL georgians reports were BS, this is probably the same thing.

[edit on 3-8-2009 by Vitchilo]

Originally posted by Vitchilo

BIG UPDATE: THIS MAY BE IT.

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moving towards Georgia

Intelligence sources of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate reported that a convoy of military vehicles passed on the eve on Saturday at 7 am local through the town of Engels, Saratov Oblast.

The convoy consisted of up 300 tanks, BMPs, BTRs, as well as various multiple launch rocket systems of "Grad (Hail)" and "Uragan (Hurricane)".

The operational sources report that the military convoy is moving towards Georgia.

We would like to remind that after Russian threats to attack Georgia, made the day before, many experts do not rule out that Moscow is preparing a new military incursion.

Thus Russian military expert Pavel Felgengauer predicts military operations and states that probability of beginning of war is approximately 80 %.

I'm going to say it could be just a routine troop rotation of the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. Also take into account Kavkaz is I think a Chechen pro-seperatist site who used to post videos of Chechens Seperatists killing Russian soldiers (If it's the site I'm thinking of)


Russia have accused Georgia in the past of aiding Chechen Seperatists, and having Russia portrayed as the aggressors in another region of the world (Georgia) would be in the Chechen Seperatists' interests hence the report on the Kavkaz site.


However, I will add that according to this link:


Russia to use force if Georgian shelling continues



From the link:

In the case the allegations of Georgian mortar shots on the South Ossetian territory are true, then it would be a serious violation of the ceasefire agreement.

In other words, Russia can justifiably claim that the ceasefire arranged by Sarkozy and Medvedev to end the war last year has been broken by Georgia (Or rather Saakashvili), and Russia now has the right to respond militarily.


Once again Saakashvili is the aggressor and claims he is the victim.


If another war starts, yet again, it will be his fault. And this time, Medvedev may no longer be tolerant of having a trouble-making, warmongering little thug on his borders.


Medvedev also knows NATO is reliant on using Russian airspace for supplies to Afghanistan.


NATO have to weigh it up here: Bad relations with Russia, a major world player and who can be a strategic partner, or bad relations with Georgia, led by a nationalistic, grandstanding and warmongering thug who wants to see NATO come to his aid with WW3 when the weapons he gets he uses to start wars.



Hmmm.


[edit on 3-8-2009 by Regensturm]

[edit on 3-8-2009 by Regensturm]

South Ossetian village shelled in another Georgian violation

The South Ossetian Ministry of Defense says the village of Otrev, near the South Ossetian capital Tskhinval, was shelled on Monday evening.

Irina Gagloeva from the Committee for Information and the Press in South Ossetia said the attacks from Georgia have recently become more frequent.

“About an hour ago, the Ossetian village of Otrev was shelled from inside a Georgian village. Shells were fired from mortars. There were two of them. Now, an operational investigative group is working there to find out more details of what happened. However, one can be absolutely positive that this is another of the usual Georgian provocations which have recently become more frequent. This is the fourth shooting attack over the last two weeks,” she said.

Also a video on Russia today as well. It appears that Georgia may be provoking Russia. But it's also possible Georgia are defending incursions into their territory past agreed borders. And remember S.Ossetia and Abkhazia are still legally part of Georgia anyway.

The video appears directed in a way that suits the Russian's, and their news stories on Russia Today are often a little short. Propaganda maybe and Russian aggression, or Georgian aggression? Frustratingly we don't know like last time!

reply to post by john124

---

Seemingly yet another breach of the ceasefire by Georgia? Things could be heating up, or it could be Georgia firing off a few shots due to the fact it's one year since the war...


Russia Today is Russian State Television (RIA Novosti) for an English speaking audience, so you always have to take into account that with their reporting there can be a pro-Russian slant.


However, watching the BBC and CNN and other MSM you'll notice (Well, at least I've noticed) there is an anti-Russian slant in reporting on the issue, where it's all about "What is Russia's next move? What is Russia's game?" and everything Russia does is suggested to be sinister and dark.


I watch Russia Today, BBC, CNN, and get other sources for news in a balancing act, on the basis relying on one source for information is never a good idea.


RIA Novosti (Russian media) reports on both side's claims and counter-claims:


Tensions rise in South Ossetia ahead of war's first anniversary


From the link:

MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - With the anniversary of last August's five-day war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia just a few days away, events in the region are taking on an oddly familiar tone.

In an echo of the accusations and counter-accusations that marked the buildup to last year's August 8-12 conflict, both Georgia and its former republic of South Ossetia have been trading claims of attacks on one another's territories.

On Tuesday, the South Ossetian communications ministry told RIA Novosti that the village of Otrev, near the republic's capital of Tskhinvali, had been shelled by Georgian forces from across the border. No injuries were reported.

The village was among the first to come under attack last August 8, when Georgian forces attacked the republic in an attempt to bring it back under central control. South Ossetia had enjoyed de facto independence since the early 1990s.

The Georgian Interior Ministry said late on Monday that three rocket-propelled grenades had been launched from South Ossetia at a Georgian village. Again, no injuries were reported.

Both sides also alleged attacks on their territories at the weekend. Russia has said it will use force to protect South Ossetian residents.

So we seem to be getting exchanges of fire now across the border like in the run-up to last year's war. The actual anniversary of the start of last year's war, the 8th August, could be very interesting indeed.


It seems Saakashvili is yet again playing the game of being the aggressor, and when the attacked fires back, he plays the victim.


A complete attention-seeker.

Russia says boosts readiness of troops in S.Ossetia


From the link:

* Russia putting S.Ossetia troops on alert

* Russia raps U.S., Ukraine for rearming Georgia

MOSCOW, Aug 4 (Reuters) - A year after fighting a war with Georgia, Russia strengthened the combat readiness of its troops in rebel region South Ossetia on Tuesday and warned the United States against arming Georgia.

"Provocations from the Georgian side ahead of the anniversary of the August events last year are not stopping," Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, said in a statement, referring to last August's five-day war.

"In connection with this, we have stepped up the combat readiness of Russian troops and border guards."

South Ossetia accused Georgian forces of firing mortars at the rebel territory last week, underscoring simmering tension in the region which analysts say could boil over into a new war.

This could be it.....Russia is readying it's troops for combat.


One more Georgian shell fired into South Ossetia and this thing could turn into a new war.


Saakashvili can now have another shell fired, Russia responds, and warmongering Saakashvili can cry once again about being the victim again when he is the aggressor like last year.


And Russia will be painted as the aggressor.

[edit on 4-8-2009 by Regensturm]

[edit on 4-8-2009 by Regensturm]

reply to post by Regensturm

---

And i see no proof of Georgia shelling S. Ossetia. Russian federation pushed international observers out of this area, then it staged war games, then claims of land by leader of "independent" South Ossetia and now this. Georgia has nothing to gain from this war, it cannot take back the land because of Russian obvious military superiority. Russian leader on the other hand promissed to hang Saakashvilli by his body parts, and having Georgia under Russian control would eliminate threat of alternative oil/gas rout into EU.
So i bet that this is re-run of Winter War from 1939, when USSR claimed that much weaker Finland shelled its forces as a casus belli.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

---

South Ossetian village shelled in another Georgian violation

www.russiatoday.com...

That is news from today.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

---

Yes. There are reports from Russian side. The one that has no independent observers by the way. The one that claimed thousands of dead civilians in previous war by the way.
Why would Saakashvilli would want another war if he is certainly going to hang by his body parts in the end? He barely survived one war he started. Second one would get him killed and Georgia semi-annexed too.

Update:
Explosion Near South Ossetia as War Anniversary Nears

Article Tools Sponsored By
By OLESYA VARTANYAN and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: August 4, 2009

TBILISI, Georgia — An explosion in Georgia close to its border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia injured a Georgian teenager on Tuesday, as both Georgian and South Ossetian officials traded accusations of cross-border shelling.

Russia on Tuesday also announced it had put its troops in the region on heightened alert, further raising tensions three days before the anniversary of last year’s war.

It was unclear whether Tuesday’s explosion was a planned attack or caused by a device left over from the war last August, Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said.

Georgian television showed footage of Ucha Giunashvili, 14, who was hospitalized after a detonator from a bomb buried in the hollow of a tree trunk exploded along the road to the village of Plavi. The bomb remained intact.

The Georgia Interior Ministry also claims that Plavi, a Georgian village close to the border with South Ossetia, came under fire on Monday night from the direction of South Ossetia.

“The fire was presumably opened from a hand grenade launcher,” the ministry said in a statement. “Two shells exploded not far from the police checkpoint, one in its immediate vicinity. The incident entailed no casualties.”

South Ossetian officials denied the charges, claiming that Monday night’s fire came from the direction of Plavi and landed in the South Ossetian village of Orteu, also causing no injuries, a statement on the separatist government’s Web site said.

A spokesman for the European Union monitoring mission in the region said on Tuesday that monitors found no evidence of firing on either side.

“There was no indication that Georgians have fired across the South Ossetian boundary line,” Steve Bird, the spokesman, said. “But there were also no indications that mortar fire landed somewhere close to the check point” on the Georgian side.

Despite an absence of independent confirmation on several recent reports of cross-border mortar fire Russia, which last year invaded large swaths of Georgian territory after Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, has vowed to again use military force to protect the enclave. Shortly after last year’s war, Moscow declared South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, independent, and was widely condemned internationally.

On Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia were on heightened alert.

“Currently, it is most important to prohibit escalation and stop exchanges of fire from developing into a larger-scale confrontation,” Andrei A. Nesterenko, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement. “For this we are doing and will do everything possible.”

Reporting contributed by Olesya Vartanyan in Tblisi, Georgia, and Michael Schwirtz in Moscow.

Is it me or we are getting closer and closer to war?

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

---

I want to show you a little article written by Russia Today. At least these people are openly talking about one-sided reporting, and at least attempting to do something about it.

Russia Today

Media spin is older than the media itself. It is as old as the notion of news. It has been in use ever since news began to circulate through word of mouth. Rumour and speculation were added to information; ideological presumptions were attached too, until the news was transformed, often giving contradictory messages.

The effect of ancient spin can easily be seen in the descriptions of the same events in different chronicles, and this is as true for Western culture as Eastern. For example, the Grunewald Battle is described differently in the accounts of the Teutonic (German) Order, in the Polish chronicles and in the accounts of the Western Russian principality of Smolensk. The ancient chronicles of Burma and Siam draw totally different pictures of the wars fought between the two nations over several centuries.

In our time, spin thrives in an age where most people get their information from television, radio and newspapers. In Israel, the majority of the population thinks that their country has just won a war against Hamas. In Gaza, notwithstanding the heavy losses, Hamas celebrates victory over Israel.

The internet has changed the world in that it provides an opportunity to look at events from an angle different from that portrayed in mainstream media. But then again, we all have views of our own, formed by the media or not, and so we choose the websites we visit according to our views, to our liking, and limit our own horizons as we do so.

Spin is not a monstrous tool of psychological warfare. Rather, spin is an integral part of human nature, because a human brain is built to receive, process and project information, and that is why most thoughts are true but every spoken word is a lie.

But the natural character of spin doesn't cancel the fact that when someone wants the public to think in a certain way about a certain event, and that someone has enough money, power and influence, the natural effect of spin can be multiplied to become a potent weapon. And it can be a most destructive one, capable of killing the truth, of changing the way events are recorded and go down in history.

Here on this page we will do our best to un-spin the armed conflicts that were shown to the public as having gone on in one way but in fact had been fought, won and lost in quite another one.

Evgeny Belenkiy, RT.

I would sooner trust a news organization like this who is listening to that sector of the public demanding unbiased reporting than the huge corporate media network White House parrots who snub their collective noses at any such assertions.

[edit on Tue Aug 4th 2009 by TrueAmerican]

Originally posted by Regensturm

Originally posted by Vitchilo

BIG UPDATE: THIS MAY BE IT.

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moving towards Georgia

Intelligence sources of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate reported that a convoy of military vehicles passed on the eve on Saturday at 7 am local through the town of Engels, Saratov Oblast.

The convoy consisted of up 300 tanks, BMPs, BTRs, as well as various multiple launch rocket systems of "Grad (Hail)" and "Uragan (Hurricane)".

The operational sources report that the military convoy is moving towards Georgia.

We would like to remind that after Russian threats to attack Georgia, made the day before, many experts do not rule out that Moscow is preparing a new military incursion.

Thus Russian military expert Pavel Felgengauer predicts military operations and states that probability of beginning of war is approximately 80 %.

I'm going to say it could be just a routine troop rotation of the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. Also take into account Kavkaz is I think a Chechen pro-seperatist site who used to post videos of Chechens Seperatists killing Russian soldiers (If it's the site I'm thinking of)


Russia have accused Georgia in the past of aiding Chechen Seperatists, and having Russia portrayed as the aggressors in another region of the world (Georgia) would be in the Chechen Seperatists' interests hence the report on the Kavkaz site.


However, I will add that according to this link:


Russia to use force if Georgian shelling continues



From the link:

In the case the allegations of Georgian mortar shots on the South Ossetian territory are true, then it would be a serious violation of the ceasefire agreement.

In other words, Russia can justifiably claim that the ceasefire arranged by Sarkozy and Medvedev to end the war last year has been broken by Georgia (Or rather Saakashvili), and Russia now has the right to respond militarily.


Once again Saakashvili is the aggressor and claims he is the victim.


If another war starts, yet again, it will be his fault. And this time, Medvedev may no longer be tolerant of having a trouble-making, warmongering little thug on his borders.


Medvedev also knows NATO is reliant on using Russian airspace for supplies to Afghanistan.


NATO have to weigh it up here: Bad relations with Russia, a major world player and who can be a strategic partner, or bad relations with Georgia, led by a nationalistic, grandstanding and warmongering thug who wants to see NATO come to his aid with WW3 when the weapons he gets he uses to start wars.



Hmmm.


[edit on 3-8-2009 by Regensturm]

[edit on 3-8-2009 by Regensturm]

kavkazcenter.com is the media outlet for the caucases emirate still and they still post videos of them killing russian pigs.

An explosion in Georgia close to its border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia injured a Georgian teenager on Tuesday, as both Georgian and South Ossetian officials traded accusations of cross-border shelling.

The Georgia Interior Ministry also claims that Plavi, a Georgian village close to the border with South Ossetia, came under fire on Monday night from the direction of South Ossetia

The fire was presumably opened from a hand grenade launcher,” the ministry said in a statement. “Two shells exploded not far from the police checkpoint, one in its immediate vicinity. The incident entailed no casualties.”

www.nytimes.com...

This is eerily reminiscent of last years exchanges before the outbreak of open war... i believe however that the georgian armed forces are in fact in no shape what so ever to attempt anything like it did last year...

I would sooner trust a news organization like this who is listening to that sector of the public demanding unbiased reporting than the huge corporate media network White House parrots who snub their collective noses at any such assertions.

Yeah Russia Today is great, they just present the facts, differents viewpoints and there's basically no spin... compared with US MSM, which is ONLY SPIN.

kavkazcenter.com is the media outlet for the caucases emirate still and they still post videos of them killing russian pigs.

Russian pigs? Are you a tchetchen or what? But thanks for the info, I'll never use this source again...

This is eerily reminiscent of last years exchanges before the outbreak of open war... i believe however that the georgian armed forces are in fact in no shape what so ever to attempt anything like it did last year...

The fact is that we don't know the extent of Georgia rearmement. They could have received high-tech anti-tank and anti-air weapons for all we know.

Russia said that Georgia was already re-armed and stronger than last year. We don't know if that is true. I guess we'll only see if it is fact or not if a conflict breaks out.

EDIT: Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S.

WASHINGTON — A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States over recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.

The episode has echoes of the cold war era, when the United States and the Soviet Union regularly parked submarines off each other’s coasts to steal military secrets, track the movements of their underwater fleets — and be poised for war.

Also...where is Maloy? I miss him! Probably hitting on some hot russian women...

[edit on 4-8-2009 by Vitchilo]

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