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Escalating situation in (country of) Georgia (pg. 38)
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| Moongoose |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
Btw, for future comparison, this is how Kosovo stands so far..Judging by dates, there is an obvious slowdown, so the situation won't change much in the near future.
http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/ |
Well stuff like that takes time. It took months for us to be recognised as an independent state (i feel bad about not knowing the exact date), and that was when it was in the west's best interests to split up Yugoslavia as much as possible. Granted i was too young to remember, but i cant seem to recall anyone else remembering that keeping the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia was such a concern and priority. |
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| otec |
| quote: | Georgia Planned to Capture Abkhazia in 2 Days
Georgia planned to capture Abkhazia during two days, by forces of three brigades of 9,000 troopers, the RF General Staff Deputy Chief, General-Colonel Anatoly Nogovitsyn announced August 27, during a news conference in RIA Novosti.
“In duration, the general plan for the operation was for two days, with the capture of Sukhumi and the entry into another line. The strength of forces in Abkhazia’s direction was three brigades, up to 9,000 servicemen overall,” Nogovitsyn said.
Georgia planned to attack Abkhazia in three directions – the Kodori Gorge, the eastern direction, the southern direction and the coastline, the south-west direction, the general specified.
With Sukhumi captured, Georgia was going to amass more troops and reach the state border with Russia to complete occupation of the region.
Nogovitsyn showed to journalists the captured e-map of the regional group of forces that operated in Abkhazia’s direction and unveiled the name of the planned operation; it was called “The Rock.” |
http://kommersant.com/p-13136/Abkhazia_occupation/ |
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| CGRumler |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
I lost faith in the political direction of the Russian Federation.
Moments ago, Russian President Medvedev announced that he is recognizing independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Lunacy. Idiocy. I cant believe it. This is horrible. This is going to be a disaster for Russia. :whip: :whip: :whip: |
Ok....
I've tried to follow this story to the best of my ability, but I am still confused about many things.
For example, why would this have a negative impact on Russia? Also, why has this move seemed to have pissed off my United States government?
Please bear with me, as I'm not exactly the most politically adapt person here..... :toothless |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moongoose
Well stuff like that takes time. It took months for us to be recognised as an independent state (i feel bad about not knowing the exact date), and that was when it was in the west's best interests to split up Yugoslavia as much as possible. Granted i was too young to remember, but i cant seem to recall anyone else remembering that keeping the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia was such a concern and priority. |
Yugoslavia was a different issue because of the 1974 constitution that gave its participant states the right to claim independence. That's sort of why Bosnia is formally still in one piece, and why Serbia legally should be. Although, as seen in Serbia, such laws often don't matter much. They may stall or speed up the issue at hand, but ultimately it's the big guys who decide what's gonna happen. The 1974 constitution just gave the west an excuse to openly support and fast forward the dissolution. I think it's possible that they would have tried to push for the same thing even if it were not for the constitution, though in that case they would probably go for Bosnia scenario - independent but formally unrecognized little smuggler's paradises. Had they wanted for Yuga to stay in one piece, they'd probably manage to stabilize it.
Edit: Hmm..I'm just thinking about Africa and all those little countries declaring independence. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure countries like Eritrea never had any constitutional options to declare independence like ex-Yu countries did. Stll, everybody in the world recognizes them anyway... |
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| Magnetonium |
OK, now that I got past the horrific shock of the announcement of independence, I can finally get back to some more discussin'
| quote: | Originally posted by CGRumler
Ok....
I've tried to follow this story to the best of my ability, but I am still confused about many things.
For example, why would this have a negative impact on Russia? Also, why has this move seemed to have pissed off my United States government?
Please bear with me, as I'm not exactly the most politically adapt person here..... :toothless |
The question for you to ask is - what does Russia gain out of this declaration? Answer: very little at this time. Its a gamble that is very dangerous that can prove to be very costly in the long run if Russia doesnt play it out right (read on to understand). NATO will still come to Georgia, few if any countries will recognize the new states as well (much less than number of countries that recognized Kosovo). What do other countries have to gain from this other than get blacklisted by USA, EU and NATO? Winning Russia's goodwill? Thats not a fair price, sorry to say that bluntly.
Besides, now Russia is losing support in Serbia. Serbians now understand that everyone will now accept Kosovo and forget about it since Russia is also playing a game of double standards. Think of it. Before this, Russian-led support of Serbia's territorial integrity was seemingly unwaivered. Now Russia cant continuee doing the same and keeping straight face.
China isnt overly ecstatic because of its issues in Tibet and Taiwan. They got nothing to gain, and quite frankly, dont mind the position they are in right now. Just like so many of the other countries who are not going to recognize the new states. Where's the incentive? Who is on Russia's side? NATO is much more powerful than Russia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia number about 320,000 people in TOTAL. Neighbouring Russian city of Sochi alone has at least 350,000 by the 1997 census (now its probably bigger). There's no oil, no strategic importance, no resources, nothing really to gain. Just some bombed out provinces with destroyed infrastructure, poor people, and so on. Rampant crime. Worse than Kosovo.
Georgia is finally free and lost forever from Russia. They will never accept this.
The world is now looking at Russia like some Soviet-style scary bear flexing its power ambitions yet again.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Russia is its own territorial integrity. Now that South Ossetia is independent, you guys think North Ossetia doesnt mind having its own country? Or other provinces of Russia? Come on, independence is so much fun! Now Russian borders are more tense than ever.
Russia has scared its neighbours less. Ukraine is BEGGING to join NATO now, considering that they fear Crimea might be lost - after all, its nearly 60 percent ethnic Russian. Azerbaijan is in fear. Central Asian states, luckily, still on Russian side, and so with Belarus.
The only thing that Russia can realistically gain from this is perhaps swaying over Azerbaijan over because of Russian pressure over Nagorno-Karabach as a result of this conflict. Russia can blackmail Azeris over it, quite simple actually. I am sure Baku can see this already without any commentaries. This way Caspian oil will be controlled by Moscow and Russia will be in control over Caucasus. Literally. |
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| Magnetonium |
1. Very obviously biased against Russia. Not very credible, but I must admit some points raised were very interesting indeed.
2. Despite its claims, Russian troops didnt invade Georgia before August 7. And to respond to the claims that Ossetians attacked Georgian villages - well, the media photos speak for themselves - dozens of burned out Georgian tanks, heavy weaponry, dozens of dead Georgian soldiers littering the streets of Tskhinvali. Burned out and bombed out city with most buildings damaged. I am sure Ossetians did some provocations, but they didnt do it to expect independence - Russia hasnt granted them anything before when they tried it. And all the evidence of major aggression are on Ossetian streets. And by the looks of it, Georgians didnt just respond in 5 minutes - this was well planned and lots of heavy weaponry had to be organized and moved to achieve all that damage and subsequently the equipment's destruction itself.
3. Author claims that Russia "skillfully" pitted ethnic groups against one another and "never generated ethnic wars within their own territory" - most of the ethnic groups have had conflicts in the past and present (Russian-Chechen, Ingush-Ossetian, Abkhaz-Georgian, Georgian-Ossetian, Armenian-Azeri). Chechen resistance has been since 1815. Ossetians hated Georgians since October Revolution. Ossetians fought Ingush as the Soviet Union was about to collapse. Nagorno Karabach conflict started while Soviet Union still existed, too. And so on.
4. Ossetia wasnt as ethnically mixed as it is today - the evidence is in today's South Ossetian ethnic proportions and the fact that ethnic Georgiana and Ossetians fought a bitter war in 1918-1920 which Ossetians were from then on very bitter about, when they lost several thousand people which was at that time 15% of their population.
5. They say the truth about Georgia's first president, Mr. Gamsakhurdia. He was the reason that Georgia eventually lost Abkhazia and South Ossetia. His idiotic policies.
6. They are correct about what happened in Abkhazia in early 1990s. Abkhazians committed ethnic massacres and forced out other ethnic groups, primarily over 200,000 ethnic Georgians, on their way to a de-facto independence.
7. Kodori Gorge was taken over by Georgian troops in 2006, despite the author's claims that it was merely "crumbling rocks" and "old monuments". And, I'll quote the author, this "is why the Abkhaz were never able to kick these Georgians out" before.
8. I disagree with the author on the drones issue. Shooting down Georgian military aircraft drones is not a provocation, Georgia's decision to send them is. Ultimately, it became obvious why Georgians sent the drones to map out the enemy's positions ...
9. Russia withdrew from the Conventional Forces Treaty in Europe in 2007 not because it wanted to attack Georgia, but because it had enough of NATO violating the same treaty. NATO kept increasing military weaponry and bases to the former Soviet bloc countries near Russian frontiers. Plus announcement of missle base in Poland was the final dagger. Russia then pulled out of the treaty. If NATO didntt with to associate with the treaty, Russians didnt feel like being the only one who did.
10. “Starting in mid July the Russians launched the biggest military exercise in the North Caucasus that they've held since the Chechnya war." = and Georgia launched its biggest-ever military exercises in summer of 2008 with NATO troops. Except who was first to send their troops to a war?
11. “The Georgians had their crack troops in Iraq. So what was left at their central base in Gori? Not very much. Just Soviet era equipment and not their best troops." --- Then why did the weak Georgian remnants attacked South Ossetia? And media photos and videos showed burned out NATO tanks and weapons on the streets of Tskhinvali, not just Soviet tanks.
12. They have some truth of the serious levels of corruption and counterfeiting in South Ossetia.
13. “On top of that, for the last four years the Russians have been dishing out passports to anyone who asks in those areas. All you have to do is present your Ossetian or Abkhaz papers and a photo and you get a Russian passport on the spot. If you live in Moscow and try to get a Russian passport, you have the normal procedure to follow, and it takes years. So suddenly you have a lot of Ossetian militiamen and Abkhaz militiamen with Russian passports in effect paid by Russian subsidies." = Surprisingly, there's probably some truth to this. Again, Russians arent angels!
14. So back to the 3rd of August. Kokoity announces women and children should leave. As it later turned out, he made all the civilians leave who were not fighting or did not have fighting capabilities. On the same day, irregulars – Ingush, Chechen, Ossetians, and Cossacks – start coming in and spreading out into the countryside but don't do anything. They just sit and wait. On the 6th of August the shelling intensifies from Ossetian positions. And for the first time since the war finished in 1992, they are using 120mm guns.”
^^^ thats a very interesting line of thought. I know for a fact that Ossetians did evacuate women and children days before the Georgian attack. As for irregularly flowing in - hmmmm, I am still trying to get some research done to see if any of it is true. Though I know for a fact that these irregulars did slip into South Ossetia after Georgia attacked. The author is basically claiming that South Ossetia with help of Russian volunteers attacked Georgia. While that is wildly unlikely, there's some evidence suggesting that South Ossetians and Russia knew of impending Georgian attack (Russian intelligence) and did their best to prepare for it.
Author is claiming that Ossetians launched an attack on Georgian peacekeepers. Oddly enough, Saakashvilli never claimed this, though he claimed so many things that Russians and Ossetians did. Little odd, do you guys think?
15. The author claims that Georgians attacked South Ossetia in an effort to stop Russian invasion of South Ossetia!!! LOL ... yeah, Georgians thought they were gonna defeat Russians? With "old" weapons ... this sounds ridiculous.
16. "What they had in the area was peacekeeping stuff, not stuff for fighting a war. They had to stop that [Russian] column, and they had to stop it for two reasons. It's a pretty steep valley. If they could stop the Russians there, they would be stuck in the tunnel and they couldn't send the rest of their army through. So they did two things. The first thing they did, and it happened at roughly the same time, they tried to get through [South Ossetian capital] Tskhinvali, and that's when everybody says Saakashvili started the war. It wasn't about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through that town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance."
^^^ LOL ... this is silly, I think. Why would Russians invade South Ossetia which they already had under control? Doesnt make sense ...
17. Thats the author's excuse for the Georgian attack:
"The peacekeepers had a military objective, and the first rule of warfare when you're talking to the media is not to reveal to your enemy what you're going to do. So they weren't going to blather into a microphone and say well, actually, I'm trying to go through Tskhinvali in order to stop the Russians. So what did he say instead? I'm here to restore constitutional order in South Ossetia. And that's it. With that, Georgia lost the propaganda war and the world believes Saakashvili started it. And the rest of the story...you know.”
^^^ Funny, interesting, but highly doubtful.
18. "Some of the Georgians were picked up by the irregulars. If they happened to be female, they got raped. If they happened to be male, they got shot immediately, sometimes tortured. Injured people we have in hospitals who managed to get out have had arms chopped off, eyes gouged out, and their tongues ripped out.”
^^^ those are some serious allegations.
Oh, the best part of the article is this - one can imagine the guy making sensationalist story to make some money:
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| DJ Shibby |
Blah, blah, same , different day.
If you dig deeply, you might discover some Georgians working with McCain.
There is one question which boggled me, regarding the possibilities. Maybe Russia really is the aggressor, maybe they are provoked, but the biggest question that answers many others is *why* they chose the olympics to invade.
It's too perfect, something bigger is going on.
Everyone on earth watching TV at the same time, the ULTIMATE advertisement opportunity, so the question is:
Did someone else invade during the olympic games in order to draw attention to an inevitable situation, or did Russia invade during the olympics because they someone believed people might have been distracted?
It smells like more of the same ; I can't help but think someone is playing us. Or playing everyone, that is. There's just all these dots waiting to be connected, a la V for Vendetta. |
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| Magnetonium |
From above link:
| quote: |
Russia sought Chinese backing for its action - but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was "concerned" about recent developments.
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Hah! Russia's definitely screwed now. Where the are its allies on this? I am still amazed at the idiocy of the Russian government. They would have had so much to win if they just forever used the separatist republics as blackmail against Georgia to keep it in the loop. What sensible things can be achieved for Russia out of this declaration? |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
Seems like Belarus might follow Russia on this http://www.en.rian.ru/world/20080828/116357547.html.
A bit biased article coming from Ria Novosti, but then again, probably not much worse than CNN.
As for China, they're probably reluctant to recognize the rebel regions because of their own Taiwan and Tibet problem. They're playing the middle ground here, and basically not recognizing anyone, be it American or Russian backed separatists. Central Asian countries are a different issue, they are all probably waiting because nobody wants to rush out and be the first. Ultimately I'm pretty sure they'll do it sooner or later. I'm guessing Armenia might follow, or even lead that pack, considering their situation with Azerbaijan. Then Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Syria and maybe Sudan. Serbia would probably like to as well, but they most certainly won't since they're in a situation similar to China as far as runaway provinces go. After that I'm pretty sure there won't be much support for those two republics. India might be a big prize here, but it will most certainly cost Russians dearly to get their support, considering they have their own separatists in Kashmir. The world is really starting to get screwed with these half recognized countries emerging all over. |
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| otec |
Without any international support looks like Russia is in deep right now.
If Europe puts economic-sanctions in a form proposed by Poland, Russia's economy will crash. |
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| otec |
| quote: | Money Continued the Westward Flight
The money is flowing out of Russia; the amount was at least $3 billion past week, showed the August 22 estimate of Russia’s foreign reserves that was released by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). The interbank rates peaked to the August 11 record yesterday on profit tax payments. The problem of liquidity is acute and the RF Finance Ministry and CBR will probably attempt to sort it out also by extending duration of the budget deposits in the banking system.
The RF foreign reserves (former foreign exchange and gold reserves) amounted to $581.5 billion as of August 22, having added no more than $0.4 billion from August 15 to set off the previous week’s decline of $16.4 billion. The capital outflow is the basic reason of this movement.
The week’s outflow could be from $3 billion to $4 billion, said Alexei Moiseev from Renaissance Capital. Some $8 billion to $20 billion flew out of the country August 8 to 15 on military clashes with Georgia.
Although political risks are the key factor fueling the outflow, there are a few other reasons that couldn’t be neglected. Quite a number of loans given to Russia’s companies mature in August; Rosneft alone paid $9 billion to creditors.
The liquidity of banking sector has suffered material decline. As of yesterday, the amount of correspondent accounts of banks and deposits with the CBR was no more than 659.5 billion ruble. Therefore, the interbank rates are high today. One-day MosPrime was 7.92 percent Thursday, although it usually fluctuates from 3 percent to 5 percent. The banks go to the CBR for liquidity at large. One-day turnover of REPO transactions totaled 168 billion ruble.
And last but not least, huge tax payments (due to high prices for crude oil) have collided with capital outflow. According to Renaissance Capital, the severance payments reached 270 billion ruble as of August 25, and from 210 billion ruble to 220 billion ruble was paid as the profit tax yesterday. |
http://kommersant.com/p1017623/International_reserves/ |
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