Truth against lies - 2

The Other Russia has published a Russian blogger’s analysis of the interview with Denis Sidristy which appeared in Krasnaya Zvezda, confirming that Russian forces were in South Ossetia before Georgia began to shell Tskhinvali. The analysis also gives detailed support to Michael J. Totten’s account of the events of August 7-8, which demonstrated that Russia began the war.

See also in this blog: Truth against lies

What are we afraid of?

What Are We Afraid Of?

by Kerkko Paananen

http://www.finrosforum.fi/?p=1314

The caution with which Europe, and Finland in particular, relates to what is happening in Russia has, I believe, deeper roots than mere political and economic convenience.

The disease we suffer from is not hatred of Russia and the Russians, which is, after all, a rather marginal phenomenon, but outright fear of our big eastern neighbour.

This fear prevents us from beholding Russia the same way that we look at other states and nations. Instead, Russia is regarded as a special case, and we concede that the rules that apply to Russia differ from those that apply to other countries.

This fear enables the criminal gang that is keeping a stranglehold on Russia to justify its violations of basic universal rights. The fear plays into the hands of those who argue that Russian values are fundamentally different from those of the West.

As long as Europe is afraid of Russia, democracy has no chance of succeeding in Russia. Conversely, once Europe begins to treat Russia with the same rules as it treats any other country, the pseudolegitimacy of the current criminal regime will cease to exist.

Yet I am afraid it is too late now. Too late for the West to stop the inhumanity in Russia. Europe has failed; the West has failed. It has failed to help the people of the Russian Federation to assert their basic rights. It has failed itself.

What right did Europe, which embodies democratic values, have to abandon 140 million Russians –half of Europe– to the unimpeded will of a fascist dictatorship?

The West has failed to defend in Russia the values that it defines itself with. By doing so, we have condemned Russia and Russians to live by rules that are diametrically opposed to those of the so-called Free World. The West has cast Russians into a black hole.

Please ask yourself: What will Europe become given that we have let this happen? What will the consequences of its inaction and cowardice be to the West itself?

The answer should be obvious for anyone not hampered by double vision: The decision to abandon Russia and the Russians will rot our society from within.

The failure of the West has made it impossible for change in Russia to come about without a societal cataclysm. The West’s indifference to the heinous crimes committed by the current regime is pushing resistance to state terror into the lap of forces that despise Western values.

This is something that took years for the Chechen resistance to find out. Now it no longer feels any need to appeal to the West. How long will it take before other repressed peoples and political movements in Russia come to the same conclusion?

What will the world be like then?

Lax: Finlandization returning to Finland

Finnish MEP Henrik Lax has strongly condemned Finnish government and presidential inaction on the Georgia crisis, and has warned that the country is underestimating the level of threat that now exists in north-eastern Europe. Via Helsingin Sanomat (my tr.):

The Georgia crisis shows how easily a small country can become the victim of pressure if it is militarily weak, Lax said.

He demanded that the government should answer the question of what the mantra of independent and credible defence means in a situation where military technology is developing at a hectic rate and costs are rising.

"This is a fundamental question which has not been answered yet," Lax said.

Without mentioning names, Lax also said that the government and president were underestimating the situation. The Georgia crisis is a serious one, but it took three weeks before a meeting of UTVA (Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy) was called.

"It was more important to be in Beijing. That says something about our political climate," Lax said.

He also had harsh words for the "psychologizing" of the rather stern conclusions drawn by Estonians on the Georgian situation. r example, President Tarja Halonen said last week on YLE's A-Studio TV that Estonians were suffering from post-Soviet stress.

If we go on like this, we should not wonder that voices in Brussels have started to talk once again about Finlandization, Lax said. He personally considered that Estonians have a more realistic idea of the Russian government than do the Finns.

Foul-mouthed FM

Via the Telegraph:

Mr Miliband spoke to the Russian foreign minister - a veteran not known for diplomatic niceties - to express British unease at events in Georgia. It seems Mr Lavrov didn't like being lectured by young Miliband.

Such was the repeated use of the "F word" according to one insider who has seen the transcript, it was difficult to draft a readable note of the conversation.

One unconfirmed report suggested that Mr Lavrov said: "Who are you to f------ lecture me?"

The breaking of Europe

At RFE/RL, Ahto Lobjakas points out that the European Union's self-satisfied belief that it had gained emancipation from Washington in the matter of security has been shattered by the recent events in Georgia:

The EU's foreign policy apparatus has been exposed as ineffectual, its minor diplomatic victories as nothing more than window-dressing covering up major strategic reverses. The bloc's vision of peaceful integration through democratic and economic reforms, which enabled it to transform the eastern half of the continent over the past decade, now has a serious question mark hanging over it. August 8 -- the day Russian troops entered Georgia -- was in a sense Europe's 9/11, regardless of parallel claims for Russia made by President Dmitry Medvedev.

In spite of the fact that the EU has been the only outside mediator attempting to negotiate an end to the conflict, the results of its mediation remain doubtful, and it looks increasingly as though Russia has scored a fait accompli in its illegal annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Europe's security has been severely compromised, and the consequences may be disastrous:

South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's secession has become [...] a dangerous precedent for Russia's other neighbors, some of them EU member states who take that threat very seriously. Even though Finland has traditionally been difficult to alarm, its president, Tarja Halonen, went on record as telling the French daily "Le Monde" of September 11 that "we cannot rule out a military conflict in our region." She also pointedly observed to "Helsingen Sanomat" on August 27 that "Finland is one of the few countries in Europe capable of defending itself militarily."

Allusions to the past

1) The two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers, which Russian media sources say were intercepted twice by NATO aircraft over Iceland and the Norwegian Sea on their way westward, landed at Venezuela's El Libertador air base on the eve of the significant date of September 11.

Their presence is intended as a "warning" to the U.S.

President Hugo Chavez said yesterday: "It's a warning. Russia is with us. ... We are strategic allies. It is a message to the empire."

2) "For those with a sense of history, a factor behind the 1962 Cuban missile crisis was Washington’s deployment of Atlas IRBMs in Italy and Turkey, which, in the wake of the confrontation, Washington quietly agreed to remove, as the development of ballistic missile submarines, the final component of Washington’s nuclear triad, obviated the need for forward basing of nuclear missiles off Russia’s southern shore. Forty years later, Turkey, sea power, and the Caribbean as subplots in rising U.S.-Russian tensions seem as interconnected as ever." (John C. K. Daly)

Radio intercepts confirm Russian troops entered Georgia on August 7

Via RFE/RL:

At a certain point, [David] Bakradze [Georgia parliamentary speaker] said, the provocations became an act of war that Georgia had to respond to, and he offered evidence that he said proves Russian tanks and troops entered Georgian territory on August 7 through the Roki Tunnel, the only road connecting North Ossetia, in the Russian Federation, to South Ossetia.

"At this point, this is still not public, but we have radio interceptions confirming Russian troops entering Georgian territory in the evening of August 7," Bakradze said.
Bakradze called that "the turning point" where the Georgian government had to make the decision to defend its territory and respond.

See also: Truth against lies

U.S. accuses Russia of "wiggling"

From: U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing, September 10:

QUESTION: Do you have any comment on this latest apparent disagreement between Lavrov and the EU on the negotiating efforts over Georgia? Lavrov says that, you know, what was signed in Tbilisi and unveiled there wasn’t what the Russians had agreed to. It has to do with the EU monitors. And apparently, in Tbilisi, they said the EU monitors would move into the whole of Georgia, and Lavrov says that that’s not what they had agreed to in Moscow.

MR. MCCORMACK: Look, these guys are trying to – at every turn, trying to wiggle out of a commitment they made and that their president put his name to. You know, we’ve seen it since August and it continues. They need to get out of Georgia and they need to stop finding excuses to do that. There – I guess the next deadline that they have committed themselves to is coming up on Monday, I believe, on the 15th, where they said – President Medvedev, once again, said that he is going to get his troops out of Georgia. I would note one quite concerning remark that has been attributed to the Russian Government and to various officials, whether that’s Prime – President Medvedev or Foreign Minister Lavrov, saying that they were going to keep 3,800 Russian troops both in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That, of course, would be a violation of the ceasefire that they signed in August. So Russia – Russia and their government and their troops need to abide by the – their international commitments, bottom line.

QUESTION: You’re saying that announcement that they would, you know, have more troops in the two breakaway regions is a violation –

MR. MCCORMACK: Absolutely.

QUESTION: – because it’s –

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, absolutely.

QUESTION: – not their pre-conflict position?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. What they agreed to is getting their troops back to pre-August 6 positions. And we’ll try to – I don’t know if we have down to the single soldier the number of Russian troops that were in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but it was right around, for each of those places, right around 1,000, maybe a little bit more. And the prescribed limits were, I think, right around 1,500, under the operative international agreements. So 3,800 in each of those areas separately, a total of 7,600, is a clear violation, not only of previous accords, but the ceasefire accord.

Perm parents' letter

Shortly after the beginning of the Georgia conflict, a group of parents of young Russian army recruits in the federation's third city, Perm, issued an appeal to Russia's president, prime minister, defence minister and Duma defence committee chairman. The letter includes the following paragraphs (my tr.):

Mr. Vladimir Putin has set Russians a task - to increase the birth rate. Why, may one ask you? The war with Georgia that has begun provides a complete answer - you, gentlemen, need a lot of cannon fodder in the form of soldiers from the provinces. Eighteen year old boys who have served only two and a half months. Who gave this criminal order to send them to their certain death? It turns out that Putin called on us to correct the country’s demographics for new wars, and not for creation.

- - - -

You who hold the power first destroy and then pour a huge amount of humanitarian assistance into the war-affected areas, you restore the economies of shattered republics. Now you have called it a humanitarian catastrophe. Tell us, who is going to return the dead and war-mutilated children to their parents? Who is going to prevent a catastrophe of the family? Like a cruel joke played on us all, the war is taking place in the Year of the Family… We demand an end to the war with Georgia and the restoration of peace! "

Truth against lies

(via Marko Mihkelson) Evidence that large Russian forces were in South Ossetia before the events of the night of August 7 began is beginning to emerge from Russian print media sources. On September 3 Krasnaya Zvezda published an account given by Captain Denis Sidristy, of the 135th motorized rifle regiment.

"We were on exercises," Captain Sidristy begins. "It was quite a short distance from the South Ossetian capital. Nizhnii Zaramakh, a North Ossetian nature reserve. We were stationed at our camp after planned exercises, but on the night of August 7 we got the order to move towards Tskhinvali. We were woken by the alarm signal - and told to march. We arrived, took up our location, and on the morning of August 8 we took such a battering that we hardly knew what had hit us..."

The newspaper Permskie novosti has reproduced the transcript of a mobile phone message received from a recruit on August 10:

"I have very little time," the boy went on. "Listen: we've been there since August 7. The whole of our 58th army. You're probably watching what's happening there on TV? Today we broke through to Vladikavkaz for armaments. Now we're going to break back again..."

Other events, like the fact of the sailing of the Moskva missile cruiser from Sevstopol on the morning of August 7, tally with the reports that Russia was already planning to invade and occupy Georgia and depose its President Saakashvili before he gave the order to attack.

The increasing volume of such reports makes the establishing of an international inquiry into the origins and beginning of the Georgia conflict all the more urgent.

Update: Kalle Kniivilä has more (in Swedish) here.

How to save Georgia

As voices are raised within Georgia against President Mikheil Saakashvili, Salome Zurabishvili, leader of the Georgia's Path opposition party, explains the real situation to RFE/RL, and argues that to rally round the president is not equivalent to support for him as an individual, but is instead perhaps the only way to save the country from destruction by Russia. No president is capable of doing this this acting alone and unaided:

I repeat once again -- now, first and foremost, everything possible should be done to ensure that the Russian forces withdraw from Georgia. At the moment, no other matter is more important for Georgia's survival. We are facing a simple, yet tragic question -- whether or not Georgia, as a [sovereign] state, will continue to exist. This is the reason why I am against all kinds of street protests, or [calls to] oust the government. I have repeatedly said that at this moment, there can be no political opposition and its activities, because right now being in opposition means opposing your own country.

No single person -- and now I'm referring to Misha [President Saakashvili] -- should harbor the illusion that he will be able to save this country on his own. This is complete nonsense. I hope he understands that this loyal attitude is not directed toward him, but rather toward the entire country. He must try to form a certain "redemption group" together with other forces. I don't call this a government, a coalition, or a cabinet of ministers. This should be a special group, working to save the country. Either [Saakashvili] realizes that this is what's necessary, or himself falls victim to this tragedy. There can be no other way.

History demonstrates that not a single country has managed to come out of such crisis with the efforts of just one man -- unless all forces came together and stood united.

Volker: Russia has not yet done what it said it would do

US NATO ambassador Kurt Volker, interviewed by RFE/RL:

We need to first make sure that Russia has done what it has said it would do before we get to the point of talking about the structure of the Geneva talks. We need to make sure that Russia is, in fact, implementing the withdrawal of its forces that it promised to do.

Ultimately, if we're going to have a settlement to the conflict zones, all the parties are going to have to be engaged, but they will not be there as independent states. We would need to be engaging the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of Georgia's sovereign territory.

Kasyanov: Russia "relentlessly provoked" Georgia conflict

Russian ex-prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, interviewed in the Los Angeles Times:

The Russian Federation relentlessly provoked the conflict in every way, and unfortunately the Georgian leadership gave in and used armed force. In response, the Russian Federation, instead of fulfilling its peacekeeping mandate, started a large-scale war against the independent sovereign state of Georgia. Not only the disproportionate use of force, but in fact a full-scale war.

-----

The current leaders are driving the country into a dead end. Problems in the country will be obvious in the near future, especially in the economic and social spheres, which are of primary concern to citizens. Inflation is rising in the country in this year. . . . I claim that the current Russian authorities don't enjoy the support of a majority of Russian citizens. As soon as conditions for daily propaganda disappear, Russian citizens will understand the essence of the current regime.

Ahtisaari: Russia wouldn't mind if Finland joins NATO

Via Helsingin Sanomat:

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari does not believe that Russia would have anything against a possible decision by Finland to join NATO.

“It is also hard to imagine that Russia would have anything against it, because that way we would get rid of talk of Finlandisation around the world”, Ahtisaari said in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat in London on Tuesday.

He also noted that Russian President Boris Yeltsin once even apologised for earlier Soviet interference in Finnish affairs.

“If we want to get rid of the past, so that Finland would never be called Finlandised again, then one might imagine that Russia would have an interest in helping, as a neighbour and as a friend."

Sarkozy agreement = no deal - 2

Via Civil Georgia:

http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19460

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on September 10 that EU monitors would only be deployed in areas adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia and not inside the two regions.

Georgia, however, said the EU monitors would be able to monitor the situation inside the two breakaway regions.

And EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, as quoted by AFP, on September 10 that the EU observer mission “will be deployed [in Georgia] with the spirit that it can deploy everywhere.” He, however, also said that initially the EU observers would deploy on the basis of "the accords signed Monday" in Moscow.

French and Russian versions of the agreement, as well as the Georgian translation, which was posted on the Georgian Foreign Ministry website, read: “The full withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces from the zones adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia to pre-conflict lines. This process of withdrawal shall be carried out within 10 days after the deployment in these zones of international mechanisms involving no less than 200 EU observers, which shall take place no later than October 1, 2008, considering the existence of legally binding documents that guarantee non-usage of force against Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on September 10: “During the negotiations held upon the EU initiative [a reference to talks in Moscow on September 8] the area of deployment of the international monitors has been defined – the entire territory of Georgia; in the first stage it will be areas adjacent to the conflict regions [Abkhazia and South Ossetia] and in the next [stage] Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”

The agreement signed in Moscow does not say anything about “first” or “next” stages of deployment. Officials in Tbilisi, however, are making a reference to a letter/statement addressed to President Saakashvili jointly by President Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

The document, which was unveiled by the Georgian side during the visit of Sarkozy and Barroso to Tbilisi, reads that the French and European Commission presidents “reaffirm that the EU is standing ready to deploy observers throughout Georgian territory.”

At a joint news conference with President Sarkozy in Tbilisi after midnight on September 9, President Saakashvili showed the document to journalists and said EU observers would “step-by-step” cover the entire territory of Georgia, including South Ossetia.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blasted such an interpretation of the agreement and said for Moscow “what happened in Tbilisi, what was discussed in Tbilisi, has absolutely no significance.”

“We have no interest in the pieces of paper which Mr. Saakashvili takes out of his pocket and shows to journalists,” Lavrov said.

He also said that such an interpretation was “a completely unscrupulous attempt not to honestly explain to Saakashvili what commitments the EU had taken.”

The only international observers, which can be deployed inside Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are in fact those of the UN and OSCE, respectively.

The document reads: “UN monitors in Georgia will continue to carry out their mandate in the area of their responsibility in accordance with the number and scheme of dislocation, as it was before August 7, 2008 without prejudice to possible corrections in future through a decision of the UN Security Council.”

And in respect of OSCE observers, it reads: “The OSCE monitors will continue to carry out their mandate in the area of their responsibility in accordance with the number and scheme of dislocation, as it was before August 7, 2008  without prejudice to possible corrections in future through a decision of the OSCE Permanent Council.”

The OSCE had eight unarmed military monitors in Tskhinvali before the hostilities, who were charged with observing the situation on the ground within a 15-km radius around the breakaway South Ossetian capital.

Lavrov, however, said on September 10 that the future mandates of the OSCE and UN observers would need the consent of Sokhumi and Tskhinvali.

“The mandates of the OSCE and UN observers, from now on, need to be agreed with Abkhazia and South Ossetia and they [the mandates] should be adapted; relevant bodies of structures of the UN Security Council and OSCE will deal with it,” Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh said in an interview with the Russian state-run newspaper, Rosiiskaya Gazeta, published on September 10, that Sokhumi would insist on renaming the UN mission, which is now called the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG).

“I talked with their [UNOMIG] leadership recently and I asked them: now, taking into account the recent recognition, where are you – in Georgia or in Abkhazia? I asked them to push the issue [of renaming] in the UN,” Bagapsh said, adding that Sokhumi would coordinate with Moscow on the issue.

 

See also: Sarkozy agreement = no deal

Moscow's arms blackmail

Because it is afraid that Russia will sell advanced weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to Iran, Israel's government has privately told all its businessmen who are involved in arms sales to Georgia to immediately cease visits there, Haaretz reports. Meanwhile, Russia is pressing for a Georgian arms embargo at the UN.

[civil.ge]:

Reuters reported, quoting Carolyn Vadino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the UN, as saying that the draft resolution was “just an attempt by Russia to divert attention from its real obligation” – undertaken under the ceasefire agreement.

Georgian policeman killed by Russian troops near South Ossetia

A Georgian policeman has been shot and killed by gunfire from Russian soldiers at a checkpoint near the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia and has succumbed to his wounds, the Georgian interior ministry reports.

The policeman died at a hospital after being wounded in the head and neck, interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

"A Georgian policeman was fired on from a Russian checkpoint in Karaleti at around 09h15 local (05H15 GMT). The Russians fired two shots," he said. The Georgian police did not return fire.

The incident comes two days after Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reached an agreement with French president Nicolas Sarkozy to withdraw Russian forces from Georgia by October 10, though not from separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

 

Via civil.ge:

MIA: Georgian Policeman Killed in Karaleti

A Georgian policeman was shot dead in Karaleti, a village in which Russian troops maintain a presence, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), said in a statement on September 10.

“At 10:15am [local time] this morning, shots were fired at a Georgian police post on the edge of the village of Karaleti in the Gori district. The shots came from a nearby Russian post. As a result, a Georgian policeman, Kakha Tsotniashvili, was badly wounded in the head and throat. He died shortly afterwards in hospital,” the Interior Ministry statement said.

“The Georgian side did not return fire,” it added.

The village of Karaleti is seven kilometers from the town of Gori and is the first village in the so-called “security zone” established by Russian troops in the occupied territories outside South Ossetia.

Considerable uncertainty

Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, is attending the meeting of foreign ministers of the Nordic countries and the Baltic states being held in Pärnu, Estonia. The agenda includes discussions on the situation in Georgia and on the relations between the European Union and Russia, the Baltic Sea strategy, issues connected to Afghanistan and the EU’s relations with Ukraine and with Moldova.

Yesterday among other things, Bildt writes,

We tried to interpret in more detail what the real outcome of President Sarkozy's deliberations in Moscow was.

The uncertainty is considerable.

(Vi försökte att mer i detalj uttolka vad som var det verkliga utfallet av president Sarkozys överläggningar i Moskva.

Osäkerheten är betydande.)

Sarkozy agreement = no deal

Kommersant points out that the chances of success for the updated agreement that was brokered by Nicolas Sarkozy and signed by both parties to the conflict on Monday look slim, to say the least. For one thing, there is a total divergence between the way in which the agreement is viewed by Moscow and Tbilisi, to the extent where it is possible to talk of two different documents having been signed. The Georgian government signed a document which stipulated that the proposed international observers will operate not only in the so-called "buffer zones" established by Russian forces, but also on the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But Russia insists that a huge contingent of its regular armed forces will have sole responsibility for security in these Georgian provinces.

Another apparently unbridgeable gap between the two sides is the fact that Moscow intends to insist that South Ossetia and Abkhazia should take part in the regional talks that will begin in Geneva on October 15. This is categorically opposed by Tbilisi. Russia will also demand that Abkhazia be represented at the next meeting of the UN Security Council, and will use its influence to have the meeting moved to an alternative location in Europe if visas are not made available to Abkhazian representatives - a step that would effectively be a hijacking by Moscow of the UN's authority.

US Team to Assess Georgia Army Needs [civil.ge]

http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19454

US to guard air space of Baltic States

From the beginning of October the United States will take over from Germany the protection of the air space of the Baltic States, Eesti Päevaleht  and other media report, citing the Latvian LETA news agency. The announcement was made by Roger A. Brady, current Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and  head of NATO Allied Air Component Command, Ramstein, at a press conference in Riga. Brady did not reply when asked if his visit was connected with the conflict between Russia and Georgia. He said he currently sees no military threats to Latvia.

Georgia war trophy exhibit in Moscow

The Central Museum of Russia's Armed Forces in Moscow has opened to the Russian public an exhibition of war trophies seized by the Russian army during the Georgia conflict. Most of the exhibits are items of weaponry, and a special focus of the show is to demonstrate that many of the weapons are Western in origin, supplied in particular by the United States, Great Britain, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. There are also unit flags and uniforms, as well as photographs of the "aggressor's" (standard parlance for Georgia) armoured columns.

Sweden to revise defence policy

In the aftermath of the Georgia war, a debate is currently taking place in Swedish military and government circles and in Sweden's media on the advisability of changes and modifications to the country's  defence policy. Of particular concern are the defences of the capital, Stockholm, which will need to be rebuilt, and of the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic. Sweden's defence minister Sten Tolgfors confirmed on Tuesday that the government's planned report on the future of the Swedish armed forces will now be delayed until Spring 2009. A Swedish media source notes that 

...the prolonged presence of Russian troops on Georgian territory has caused Tolgfors and others involved in the defence planning process to reassess the future of Sweden’s military.

The defence minister now says that past reports submitted last December and June by the government’s commission on defence will be given a new supplement to be prepared by the government and the Armed Forces.

While Sweden has 30,000 active duty troops, a decision taken earlier in the decade to scrap many of the resources needed for mobilization means that it would currently take one year to mobilize 10,000 Swedish ground troops, according to Svenska Dagbladet.

The speed at which Russia was able to mobilize its troops for the Georgia campaign gave Tolgfors and others in Sweden’s defence establishment pause.

“We saw in Georgia that it wasn’t huge forces, a few tens of thousands of men at its peak on the Russian side. However, it happened very fast – and Sweden’s military hasn’t been under political control in that way previously,” Tolgfors told SvD.

“What we see in Georgia is that speed is a deciding factor. It wasn’t a large force, but rather that Russia has committed to rapidly mobilized and accessible units.”

Russia to establish military bases in Georgia

According to Civil Georgia,

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on September 9 that Moscow had established diplomatic relations with Tskhinvali and Sokhumi.

He also told journalists after meeting with the foreign ministers from breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Murat Jioev and Sergey Shamba, respectively, in Moscow that agreements on “friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance” between Russia and Abkhazia and Russia and South Ossetia had already been “prepared for signing at the highest level.”

Lavrov pointed out that the agreements also envisage military assistance, according to Interfax.

“It is envisaged that each of the parties to the agreement would provide the other party with the right to construct, use and develop military infrastructure and military installations,” Lavrov said.

          - - -

In late August, Russian news agencies reported that agreements on military cooperation between Russia and Abkhazia and Russia and South Ossetia were under preparation, envisaging installing two military bases in Abkhazia and one in South Ossetia.

The plan, according to those reports, was to deploy Russian troops at bases in Gudauta and Ochamchire in Abkhazia. Georgia has long claimed that the Gudauta military base was in fact never closed down, with the Russian military continuing to use the infrastructure there. As far as Ochamchire is concerned, there is a port in this district of the breakaway region.

Reports also said last month that a Russian military base was planned for Java. The Georgian authorities claim that the Russian side started construction of military infrastructure in this South Ossetian stronghold long before the invasion of Georgia.

Russia's annexation of Georgian territory first in Europe since Hitler and Stalin

...Earlier Saakashvili, commenting on Russia's actions, said that "this is the first time on the territory of Europe, after the Hitler regime and Stalin's Soviet Union, that a large state has made a unilateral attempt, with the use of force, to completely smash a neighbouring country and openly annexe its territory," the Novosti-Gruziya agency reported. "This is an act of unimaginable lawlessness and brazenry. The step that Russia has taken is completely illegal and will have no legal consequences either for Georgia or for the rest of the world," Saakashvili emphasized.

Russia to keep 7,600 troops in Georgia

Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov has said that Russia will keep a total of 7,600 servicemen in the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The announcement signals the failure of yesterday's peace agreement brokered by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces to their pre-August 8 positions as a precondition.

ICJ hears Georgia's case against ethnic cleansing

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague - the principal  judicial organ of the U.N. - is presently hearing three days of urgent proceedings connected with Russia's recent invasion of Georgia.

The action began last month, when Georgia

submitted a request that the court impose provisional measures to preserve its “rights… under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to protect its citizens against violent discriminatory acts by Russian armed forces, acting in concert with separatist militia and foreign mercenaries” on and around its territory.

In that application, Georgia said that since the early 1990s, Russia has “engaged in a systematic policy of ethnic discrimination directed against the ethnic Georgian population and other groups in those regions.”

Further, Georgia contends that despite the withdrawal of its troops and its declaration of a ceasefire, Russian military operations have continued in territories in Georgia’s control. 

The UN News Centre also notes that

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 160,000 people were displaced during the conflict which began on 8 August, with some 128,000 uprooted within Georgia. Most of the roughly 30,000 who fled to Russia have since returned to South Ossetia.

Saakashvili: We can prove Georgia did not start war [civil.ge]

Saakashvili: We Can Prove Georgia did not Start War

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 9 Sep.'08 / 05:02

http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19440

President Saakashvili has claimed Tbilisi possesses “solid” evidence proving that Georgia did not start war, as well as rebutting allegations that Georgia fell into a Russian trap.

Speaking at a news conference after talks with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, after midnight on September 9, Saakashvili said he had handed over to President Sarkozy; President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Tbilisi “a very strong proof” of that.

“I know people have been asking questions: who started the hostilities?” he said. “Everybody knows now that genocide was fake; there was no genocide [a reference to the Russian allegations that Georgia committed genocide of the South Ossetian population].”

“I gave to President Sarkozy, to President Barroso and to Javier Solana, I think, very strong proof that Georgians responded to the large-scale Russian invasion that took place before the hostilities emerged,” he added without going into details about this evidence.

“We can prove this; it is a very solid proof and you have ability to appreciate it,” he continued. “From this moment on I do not think there will be any speculation any more whether Georgia started it or Georgia went into the trap; we did not go into the trap; we did not started it. They [Russia] started; they’ve invaded us in a classical way like the invasions happened in the 19th century, in the 20th century and unfortunately it happened again in the 21st century.”

He also said that Georgia was ready for any international investigation of what led to the war.

“Any international commission to investigate it would be welcomed,” he told journalist in a separate remarks after the news conference with Sarkozy. “We are for serious international investigation… I’ve heard [the German] Foreign Minister [Frank-Walter] Steinmeier speaking about it; I was the first one to say that; we want maximum transparency; we are for transparency.”

Kvachkov: Georgia war was ended too soon

Vladimir Kvachkov, the ex-colonel of Russian military intelligence who in June 2008 was finally acquitted of the attempted murder of the Russian politician and businessman Anatoly Chubais, has commented on the performance of Russian forces during the recent Georgia war. Kvachkov is critical of Russian military planning and strategy during the conflict. He believes that the war was essentially a test set by the United States to monitor the fighting capability of Russia's armed forces. He compares it to the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol during the undeclared Soviet-Japanese Border War of 1939, and believes that while this conflict also appeared to be a military victory, it ended in a similarly negative outcome for Russia. Kvachkov says that for a number of technical reasons, the Georgian army proved to be superior to the Russian one. In particular, the Georgian SU-25s. modernized by the Israeli company Elbit, were able to fly at night, and the Russian air force was unable to put up effective counter-action. The Georgian forces were thus able to inflict heavy casualties on Russian armoured columns, and this superiority continued into the third day of the war. Kvachkov considers that the fatal mistake that Russia made was not to carry the conflict through to the end - if an attack on Tbilisi had been launched, Saakashvili could have been deposed and a new president - probably Igor Giorgadze - installed in his place. In fact, Kvachkov says, the order for such a mission was actually given, but was not followed through because of "a lack of political will". He says he thinks that Russia made the same mistake as the Americans in the Desert Storm operation. He believes that because it needs these facilities for the campaign against Iran, the US will quickly help Georgia to repair its bombed airfields and bases, which were not that heavily damaged in any case, as Russian air action was not particularly effective. And so pressure will once again mount on Russia - via Georgia - with the main pressure points being Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Venezuela exercises to include land-based Russian anti-submarine aircraft

An interfax report dated September 8 says that during the joint Russia-Venezuela naval exercises to be held in the Caribbean in November, Russia plans to temporarily deploy anti-submarine aircraft at an air base on Venezuelan territory.

The warships scheduled to take part in the exercises include the "Pyotr Velikii" heavy atomic missile cruiser and the "Admiral Chabanenko" anti-submarine ship, according to the report which cites information given by Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko.

Polish TV crew detained near Gori

Gazeta.ru reports that two members of a Polish television crew have been detained by Russian soldiers near the Georgian town of Gori. All the crew's equipment was seized and confiscated, and Polish media say that the two Polish citizens, who were driven off to an undisclosed location, have been classed by the local authorities as prisoners of war.

10 myths about Russia

In Newsweek magazine, British MP and former Europe minister Denis MacShane lists the 10 big myths of Russia, its leader and its new power, adding:

If Europe can stay calm and united, much of the damage can be undone. Russia would like to split the EU from the United States and separate EU member states into competing nations. It has on its side a gang of useful idiots, who are willing to justify its policies out of dislike for the United States. But this is a struggle over Europe's future, and by understanding the key facts of the situation—and avoiding being misled about who is to blame for it—European policymakers will have gone a long way in figuring out what to do next. Putin is leading Russia into a dead end. If Europe sees through his bluster, he will be revealed as a bully and a would-be emperor who is more naked than he realizes.

Footing the bill

In Yezhednevny zhurnal, Boris Suvarin calculates the bill that Russia will have to pay for its seizure of South Ossetia - a bill that is largely for the creation of "platinum passports". Excerpt (my tr.):

For 10 years’ expenditure on maintaining Kokoity (and the rest of the South Ossetian population)

- 1 billion US

The war itself, + reconstruction - 1 billion

But the most expensive item is the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia (or rather, the recognition of Russia’s right to grant this independence to whomever it likes) by Nicaragua, and in the longer term by such leaders of world public opinion as Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan… Well, all that will come to around 4 billion.

The total comes to around 6 billion.

The population of South Ossetia is, I repeat – 60,000.

All told, if the "recognition plans" come to fruition, then for the right to issue one (1) passport, the Russian Federation will be paying approximately 100,000 US dollars.

There is no cloud that does not have a silver lining! From this it follows that Russia will at least not seize Crimea. The Russian Federation simply doesn’t have enough cash in its budget to hand out its passports to residents of the Crimea on the same terms. Indeed, the population of Crimea is 2 million. And they won’t want to take a Russian passport any more cheaply – it wouldn't be worth their while. After all, everyone now knows what the market rate is.

The only people who will take and use Russian passports that are free of charge are people who were born in Russia. The rest won’t give themselves to Russia so cheaply.

But ordinary Russian taxpayers have no reason to feel envious: the budget money "for South Ossetian passports" can be sought, after all, not in the pockets of the South Ossetians themselves but in the bank accounts of Ortega, the Moscow generals and the owners of the construction companies that are building the haciendas in the environs of Moscow'for Kokoity and his relatives..

Sarkozy: "Yalta is behind us"

"The revival of spheres of influence is unacceptable. Yalta is behind us."

- President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking at a press conference in Moscow today.

Meanwhile, Jamestown defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer has speculated on a possible resumption of Russian military action in Georgia:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called for an arms embargo on Georgia "while the Saakashvili regime exists" (Interfax, September 1).

It is possible that Moscow is ready to begin to enforce such an embargo, by invoking the "additional security measures" as part of Putin’s mysterious answer. Russian warships and tanks may be moved to Batumi and other forces to the capital of Tbilisi under the pretext of checking U.S. aid shipments. Such a move would effectively choke off Georgia's connections with the outside world.

By invading Batumi, the capital of the autonomous Ajara Republic, Russia may hope to encourage a local separatist movement to break up Georgia further. Aslan Abashidze, the warlord who ruled Ajara from 1992 to 2004, is at present in exile in Moscow. By taking over Tbilisi International Airport and causing a panic in the capital, Moscow may hope finally to topple the "Saakashvili regime" and at the same time embarrass the hated Americans.

Winter bad weather and snow in the mountains are coming soon. The Russian military has only until the end of October to finish off the job in Georgia this year. The EU summit may be seen as a green light to go ahead, while the West is ready to use only hot words that are watered down anyway by "our friends in Europe"--Italy, France, and Germany, which Putin specifically praised for their "understanding" (www.government.ru, September 2).

Investors flee Russia

The Guardian notes that Russia's

victory has been undermined by an alarming flight of capital. Analysts estimate that, since the war began on August 8, $19bn (£10.7bn) has been withdrawn from the country.

The Kremlin is also facing other economic problems. They include a rapid drop in the oil price, which has fallen almost 30% from peaks close to $150 a barrel, and a 9.7% increase in inflation since the start of the year.

Analysts believe the war could become a catalyst for a more profound slowdown following at least seven years of unprecedented economic growth.

Georgia is now the centre of world politics

President Mikheil Saakashvili has said at a televised meeting with farmers in Georgia's eastern Kaheti district that the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts have now become a matter for the whole world:

"Despite Russia’s expectations, Georgia has not been left alone [internationally],” he said. “Russians prepared everything in advance: propaganda; clichés; who started [the war]; how to provide media coverage; [Russia] bribed politicians and journalists throughout the world; they have lots of many; but it was all thwarted.”

“These conflicts were forgotten and frozen; but today the entire world says that Georgia’s territorial integrity should be protected; today the entire world states that this is their issue and not just a matter between Georgia and Russia.”

“Georgia has turned into the center of the world politics,” he added.

“Various politicians’ popularity and matter of being elected or not elected is now judged based on their [views] on Georgia and it happens in huge and very important countries,” Saakashvili said without specifying those countries, but added “these are countries of decisive importance.”

He also said that “return of our territories” and “peaceful reunification of Georgia” was the major goal.

“I am convinced now as never before that Georgia’s territorial integrity will be restored. It will not be an easy process. This is now a matter between the furious Russia and rest of the world,” Saakashvili said.

Two or three months ago some European ambassadors, he said were saying: ‘we have no time for Georgia, we have at first to deal with Iraq, Afghanistan.’

“But just take a look what is happening now: both [presidential] candidates in the Unite States say that they have two major issues: terrorism and Georgia. It [situation in Georgia] is the major issue of internal politics in Europe, including in Britain, France; and that goes without saying that this is the case in our traditional allies in eastern Europe. And unfortunately this issue has triggered the governmental crisis in Ukraine."

Moscow's Ideologist-in-Chief

Andreas Umland, on the rise and rise of Ivan Demidov, the Kremlin's new ideologist:

Demidov has professed to be under the influence of a particularly extreme brand of Russian imperialism known under the label of “neo-Eurasianism.” This ideology has been principally developed, in hundreds of articles and books, by the neo-fascist Russian theoretician Alexander Dugin (b. 1962), and constitutes perhaps the most radical anti-democratic ideology that has gained acceptance within Russia’s political establishment today. In a November 2007 interview for Dugin’s website Evrazia.org, Demidov stated that “doubtlessly, a crucial factor, a certain breaking point, in my life, was the appearance of Alexander Dugin.” The two men have been cooperating for a while now within Demidov’s “Spas” TV channel where Dugin has his own show called “Vekhi” (signposts). To be sure, Demidov has repeatedly stated that his various patriotic propaganda projects are designed to deprive russophile ultra-nationalists of their control of the nationalist agenda and thus aim to fight the increase of xenophobia and hate crimes, in Russia. He announced that “the words ‘Russian’ and ‘fascism’ are antonyms,” and that he and his associates will “fight against the infusion of the term ‘Russian fascism’ into mass consciousness.”

However, in 2007, Demidov, with explicit reference to Dugin, also acknowledged to be a “convinced Eurasian.” This is oddly the same phrase that Dugin had used 15 years earlier to describe the political beliefs of Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), the infamous chief of the SS Security Service and one of the planners of the Holocaust. Dugin sees his Eurasian movement as the follower of a secret “Eurasian Order” that existed for centuries, and included, among others, various German ultra-nationalists. While, at times, strongly distancing himself from Hitler’s crimes, Dugin has, throughout the 1990s, repeatedly expressed his admiration for certain aspects of the Nazi movement. For instance, he called the theory sector of the Waffen-SS an “intellectual oasis” within the Third Reich, and admitted that National Socialism was “the fullest and most total realization” of the Third Way that Dugin advocates until today. In one of his numerous pro-fascist articles of the 1990s, Dugin gets excited about the prospect that, after the failures of Germany and Italy, there will, in Russia today, finally emerge a truly “fascist fascism.” In the new century, to be sure, Dugin’s rhetoric has become more cautious. Now a frequent political commentator on various TV shows, he often poses as an “anti-fascist” and describes himself as a “radical centrist.” Dugin tries to draw a line between the inter-war right-wing intellectuals whom he admires and those who supported Hitler. Yet, as late as 2006, Dugin admitted that among his models are the ultra-nationalist German brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser who got into personal conflicts with Hitler in the early 1930s, yet had also played a crucial role in making the NSDAP a mass party in the 1920s. In March 2008, his WWW site Evrazia.org confirmed that Dugin has still sympathies for the Strasser brothers.

Russia planning "Finlandization of Europe"

After Vladimir Putin's open blackmail of Europe yesterday, when he said in a Russian television interview that Europe could not exist without Russia, that it is dependent on Russia for the oil and gas it needs in order to maintain its standard of living, is discussed by Marko Mihkelson, who believes that Russia's ultimate aim is the Finlandization of Europe. Moscow wants to increase its political influence not only on its neighbours, but on the whole continent. It is now giving particular attention to left-wing political groups which traditionally take a softer line towards Russia. When President Sarkozy goes to Moscow tomorrow to meet Medvedev and Putin, he must make it clear to them that Russian forces must withdraw to the positions of before August 7, that it must stop threatening its neighbours and return to the principles of international law. If this does not happen, then Europe must impose concrete sanctions against Russia, for it needs to be remembered that it is not Europe that needs Russia, but Russia that needs Europe in order to survive.

Russian soldiers bringing reinforcements into Poti

Gazeta.ru reports that Russian soldiers are fortifying their positions in the Georgian port town of Poti. Six new units of heavy armour have been brought in, together with additional soldiers.

Occupying Russian soldiers detain and abuse Georgian journalists

Grani reports that

Russian soldiers in the village of Tsaishi in Georgia's Zugdidi district detained Giga Kilasonia, a cameraman for the Obshchestvenny Veshchatel television channel, and Rustavi-2 television reporter Emma Gogokhia, who were trying to film illegal Russian military checkpoints in Tsaishi, gazeta.ru reports, citing its Tbilisi correspondent.

... "While the journalists were filming, three armoured personnel carriers arrived, and the Russian soldiers told them to stop what they were doing. They took away the keys of the cameraman's car, and tried to force both journalists into one of the APCs. When the journalists refused, the soldiers roughed them up. 40 minutes later, representatives of the UN mission arrived on the scene, and after their intervention the journalists were released."

Syria: the Georgia effect

Haaretz defence correspondent Aluf Benn describes how Syrian leader Bashar Assad is working the post-Georgia world to his advantage:

Assad was quick to take Russia's part in its war with Georgia, lent it public support, and agreed to heighten Russia's naval presence at its port in the city of Tartus. In return, he asked the Russians for advanced weapons systems, which even if they are not supplied soon, raise the level of concern in Israel and improve Syrian deterrence. Putin, who wants to revive Russia's influence in the region, has an excellent grasp of this game.

Refugees

Russia and Georgia at War has published links to two galleries of photographs taken at camps for Georgian refugees in Gori, victims of ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia and other regions of Georgia. Many of the refugees are children. The galleries are here and here.

Cheney on Russia, Georgia and Israel; Venezuela-Russia exercises

At the Ambrosetti Forum being held at Villa d'Este, Cernobbio, Italy, US vice president Dick Cheney has made a statement on the current situation in Georgia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Excerpt:

In the space of the last 30 days, Russia has violated the sovereignty of a democracy; made and then breached a solemn agreement, in a direct affront to the European Union; severely damaged its credibility and global standing; and undermined its own relations with the United States and other countries.

This chain of aggressive moves and diplomatic reversals has only intensified the concern that many have about Russia's larger objectives. For brutality against a neighbor is simply the latest in a succession of troublesome and unhelpful actions by the Russian government.

Haaretz reports that

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with [Israel's] President Shimon Peres on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti forum on the edge of Italy's Lake Como on Saturday, telling the Israeli leader that Russia is selling arms to Damascus and Iran with the clear knowledge that they are being channeled to Hezbollah and terror groups in Iraq.

The American vice president later reiterated these remarks in his address at the economic conference, saying that "Russian arms dealing in the Middle East has endangered the prospects for peace and freedom in the region." He added that the Russian leaders view democracy as a direct threat to their regime. Russia crossed a clear line when it invaded Georgia and attacked democracy and the rights of innocent civilians, Cheney said.

Meanwhile, The BBC reports a senior Venezuelan naval officer as saying that four Russian ships will take part in joint naval exercises, which will also involve Venezuelan aircraft and submarines, to be held in Venezuelan territorial waters (i.e. the Caribbean) in November. This can perhaps be seen as Russia's response, flagged by Putin on September 2, to NATO's current presence in the Black Sea.

September 6

Today is the anniversary of the proclamation of the independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, though the day has passed without many people even noticing, such is the world's evident desire to let Chechen independence be forgotten. Yet, as some European politicians have none the less noted, the roots of the Georgian crisis lie in what happened in Chechnya seven or eight years ago, when similar large-scale violence was directed by Moscow's armies against the civilian population of a small state, and international reaction was either muted or inadequate.

Czech official warns of more Russia-related crises

The Czech deputy foreign minister, Tomas Pojar, has warned at the United Nations that there will be more crises in Europe brought about by Moscow's desire to test its neighbours and the international community as a whole.

Tomas Pojar, interviewed in the LA Times:

A new conflict can be created in Crimea . . . because of [Russia's] political and demographic and military presence. You have a lot of similarities to the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but it is not exactly the same. We should pay real attention to Ukraine, . . . supporting economic stability and, as far as we can do it, political stability.

The death of international law

In the continuing Prague Watchdog debate between Sergei Markedonov and his critics, the latest contribution to the discussion examines the problem of Realpolitik as the matrix of contemporary fascism.

Georgia was not to blame for conflict

As calls emerge for an international inquiry into what led to the outbreak of armed conflict between Georgia and Russia, Norbert Strade points out that the whole debate is founded on a misconception:

...it is *not* about who did what in the months before the war broke out. That's of course an important question, especially for historians. But the real issue here is something completely different. Georgian forces never came even close to Russian territory and had no intentions to enter it, with other words, Georgia did not attack Russia, while Russian forces attacked and occupied Georgian territory, on the pretext that Russia has the right to interfere in an internal Georgian conflict. This is a classical case of a war of aggression, nothing less, nothing more. It started with the silly concept of a "disproportionate" Russian act, and now they are trying to move the focus even further away from the (latest) supreme crime committed by the leaders of the Russian Federation.

Make or break

In spite of its advocacy of the essentially faceless Barack Obama, the Independent makes a sensible point in today's leading article:

The make-or-break moments of this campaign will come in the candidates' debates. If the young Democrat can hold his own with the tested Republican on great matters of war, peace and economic struggle, he can lay to rest charges that he lacks the spine and the experience to sit in the Oval Office. If he does, Mr Obama will win, perhaps by a wide margin. If not then it is quite possible, even in the best year for Democrats in a generation, that he will lose.

CSTO fails to recognize S. Ossetia, Abkhazia

Disappointing the Kremlin's hopes, CSTO heads (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan) meeting in Moscow have failed to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Yezhednevny zhurnal notes.

This leaves Nicaragua's Iran-friendly Daniel Ortega as the only foreign head of state to have taken steps towards the recognition of the breakaway provinces, though his decree still has to be approved by parliament.

Cheney: Ukraine should not be intimidated

Via RFE/RL:

Cheney kept up the pressure on Russia over its actions in Georgia, too. He said Georgia had been "subjected to a Russian invasion, and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt by force of arms to dismember its territory."

He added that people should be able to live without fear of "economic blackmail or military invasion or intimidation."

Yushchenko, meanwhile, said Ukraine had "an understanding" with the United States on most issues, including Russian military intervention in Georgia.

USS Mount Whitney now off Poti

Reuters reports that the USS Mount Whitney has now dropped anchor off the Georgian port of Poti, where Russian troops have been patrolling. 

U.S. warship to arrive in Poti [civil.ge]

U.S. Warship to Arrive in Poti

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 5 Sep.'08 / 12:19

http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19406

USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), a flagship of the U.S. 6th Fleet, will arrive in the port of Poti on September 5 with humanitarian aid onboard, the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi said in a statement.

The command and control warship is expected to arrive in the port town – in the outskirts of which Russian forces maintain outposts – at 5 pm local time.

“USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20) plans to deliver more than 17 tons of relief supplies, including 4,000 blankets donated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), juice, powdered milk and hygiene products,” the U.S. embassy said.

This will be the third ship to have transported humanitarian aid to Georgia. Two previous ships - a U.S. navy guided missile destroyer, the USS McFaul, and a U.S. coast guard cutter, Dallas (WHEC 716) – dilivered aid in the port of Batumi last month.

To do

Another list of suggestions on how to accentuate Britain's response to the Russian government's flouting of international legal standards, this time from the Independent's Dominic Lawson, in the guise of a "found memo". Some of the suggestions are likely to be followed at some point. Excerpt:

On the subject of Anglo-Russian business partnerships, we should adopt a much tougher vetting procedure for former servants of the Crown offered money to sell their services to Mr Putin's friends. It's not as if they don't have good public sector pensions (thanks, by the way). I am sorry to have to tell you that Sir Francis Richards, the former head of GCHQ, was recently allowed to join the advisory board of a telecoms company owned by Mikhail Fridman – one of the very oligarchs who have just created such havoc for BP's oil business in Russia. You can tell the current head of our secret communications centre that Sir Francis is the last GCHQ boss who will be allowed to work for Mr Fridman, or any other Russian billionaire

We are, as you know, sceptical about Germany's willingness to cause genuine discomfort to Mr Putin's regime. Nevertheless, Chancellor Merkel is much more open to such a course than her predecessor Gerhard Schröder: he is now the chairman of the Nord Stream gas pipeline project designed to pump Gazprom's products subsea directly to Germany, thus reducing Russia's dependence on Poland and Ukraine for transit. We are told that Chancellor Merkel would enjoy making Mr Schröder's life less pleasurable, and would welcome your support in supplying any regulatory or environmental reasons – even genuine ones – as to why the Nord Stream gas project should be blocked.

Now for the most sensitive matter of all – what our American friends call the 'short and curlies department'. Our colleagues in the Metropolitan Police have plenty of evidence that the FSB was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. As you know, this was the first time since the death of Georgi Markov that one of Her Majesty's subjects has been murdered in this country by a foreign intelligence service. You will also know that the Russian Government has refused even to consider extraditing the chief suspect to face trial in the UK.

We therefore suggest that a public inquest is held into the assassination of Mr Litvinenko. We were impressed with the way that Lord Justice Scott Baker conducted the recent inquest into the deaths of Diana Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed. He could be most usefully reemployed: you will recall that he kept the Diana inquest going for many months, with the media given complete access to all documentation, and that we were asked to agree that even MI6 officers should be compelled to give evidence in public.

Pax Antiamericana

In his LA Times interview, Alexander Dugin puts the matter in unambiguous terms:

First of all, I advocate strongly a multipolar construction of the world. I think that the pretension of the United States to be the unique pole of the world . . . is completely wrong, immoral and unacceptable by the other great centers of power.

We support the creation of great space, a few great spaces, instead of only one point of decision, the United States' decision. We think Russia should be in the vanguard of this process.

Doing the splits

A number of articles have appeared in the Western and Russian press suggesting that splits exist within the current Kremlin leadership, and that there is a tussle for power among various internal factions. On August 25, Pavel Felgenhauer reported that

presidential adviser Gleb Pavlovsky has said in a radio interview that there is a "party of war" inside the Kremlin - a group of high officials that are pressing for a direct attack on Tbilisi to overthrow the Georgian government. Pavlovsky states the alleged "party of war" wants to use the conflict with Georgia to undermine President Dmitry Medvedev's plans of modernize Russia, that "they say we must go further than Tbilisi," apparently indicating possible plans of further military action to subdue other pro-Western Russian neighboring nations like Ukraine. Pavlovsky stated that by signing a ceasefire agreement brokered by Sarkozy, Medvedev has defeated the "party of war" (Ekho Moskvy, August 12).

More recently, on September 1, Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in an article published in the Moscow Times that Georgia has "split the Kremlin":

The Georgia crisis revealed a new strategic force in the Kremlin that opposes both Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. We still cannot name its players, but we are aware of its interests and impact on events in the same way that astronomers discern a new but invisible planet by recording its impact on known and visible objects in space.

One after another, loyal Kremlin pundits have appeared on television and radio to denounce "provokers," whom they dare not name, for "planning the incursion of Russian troops all the way to Tbilisi and the establishment there of a pro-Russian government."

And on September 3, Yulia Latynina published an article in Yezhednevny zhurnal - quoted by Window on Eurasia - focusing on the conflict in Ingushetia and the increasing autonomy of the republic's President Murad Zyazikov, once more with a reference to a split:

“the destabilization of the Caucasus” since the Georgian events reflects a fundamental divide in the Russian Federation. As a country, “Russia needs peace [there], but the siloviki need stars and power,” something they can only win by stirring up trouble and engaging in more violent acts.

Moreover, she adds, “the contemporary Russian model of power is so constructed that those in power can do anything – from the most familiar things like corruption to the most exotic like loss of control over the territory of a republic.” In this situation, the real criminals are not those who take bribes or assist in murders but those who have made this system possible.

The view that the Kremlin's political system is traditionally characterized by power struggles and inter-factional competitions of various kinds is nothing new. During the Cold War it was the standard method used by Western Kremlinologists to explain the apparent shifts of emphasis in Soviet foreign policy. While throughout the post-World War II period there undoubtedly were divisions within the ranks of the Politburo, the notion that there were "liberals" vying with "conservatives" in the corridors of Moscow's power became a generally employed means of misleading western public opinion about Soviet intentions. One of the major examples that comes to mind is the Soviet War Scare of 1983, when belligerent statements of a most extreme kind began to come from the Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, who until then had been carefully presented to Western opinion as a "liberal" by comparison with his predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev. One aim of this image campaign was to influence and support Western anti-war movements, and to create a general atmosphere of fear and uncertainty throughout Europe which might render Western politicians - especially American ones - more amenable to Soviet foreign policy aims. As Benjamin B. Fischer notes in his CIA monograph A Cold War Conundrum:

US-Soviet relations had come full circle by 1983--from confrontation in the early postwar decades, to detente in the late 1960s and 1970s, and back to confrontation in the early 1980s. Europeans were declaring the outbreak of "Cold War II." French President Francois Mitterrand compared the situation that year to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1948 face-off over Berlin. On this side of the Atlantic, the doyen of Soviet-watchers, George Kennan, exclaimed that the new superpower imbroglio had the "familiar characteristics, the unfailing characteristics, of a march toward war--that and nothing else." Such fears were exaggerated. Even at this time of heightened tension, nowhere in the world were the superpowers squared off in a crisis likely to escalate into full-scale nuclear war. But a modern-day Rip van Winkle waking up in 1983 would have noted little if any improvement in the international political climate; he would not have realized that a substantial period of detente had come and gone while he slept. The post-detente "second Cold War" was essentially a war of words--strong and at times inflammatory words. In March 1983, President Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the "focus of evil in the world" and as an "evil empire." Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov responded by calling the US President insane and a liar.4 Then things got nasty. Following Andropov's lead--and presumably his orders--the Soviet propaganda machine let loose a barrage of harsh verbal assaults on the United States reminiscent of the early days of the Cold War. Moscow repeatedly accused President Reagan of fanning the flames of war and compared him to Hitler--an image even more menacing than that of Andropov as the evil empire's Darth Vader. Such hyperbole was more a consequence than a cause of tension, but it masked real fears.

As Fischer shows, the 1983 Soviet war scare was a real one, and the possibility that a nuclear exchange might have taken place between the United States and the USSR was not a fantasy. And in the end, the Kremlin's careful engineering and manipulation of terms like "hawks" and "doves", of "liberals" and "hardliners" which were supposed to exist within its power structures, mimicking the "hawk-dove" dynamics of US foreign and defence policy, turned out to be a mask for something much more disturbing - a call to arms which could have involved a military invasion of Western Europe. The painstakingly crafted KAL-007 crisis, involving the shootdown of a South Korean aircraft over Soviet territory,burgeoned into a mighty ratcheting up of military tension combined with ferocious anti-American rhetoric.

Radio Liberty interviews with Soviet citizens traveling abroad suggested that much of the Soviet public was genuinely alarmed. A series of officially sponsored activities at home fed the frenzy. Moscow organized mass "peace" rallies; sponsored "peace" classes in schools and universities; arranged closed briefings on the "war danger" for party activists and military personnel; designated a "civil defense" month; broadcast excerpts from Stalin's famous 1941 speech to troops parading through Red Square on their way to defend Moscow from the approaching German army; and televised a heavyhanded Defense Ministry film that depicted a warmongering America bent on world domination. The Politburo also considered, but rejected, proposals to shift to a six-day industrial workweek and to create a special "defense fund" to raise money for the military. What were the Soviet leadership's motives? Some observers who have studied the war scare have written it off as political theater--as an elaborate orchestration to release tensions over KAL 007 at home and promote the ongoing Soviet "peace offensive" abroad.99 But it clearly was more than that. The leadership would not have invoked the memory of World War II--which is emotionally charged and had an almost sacred significance for the Soviet people--solely for propaganda purposes. It would not have fueled popular fears about nuclear extinction just to boost morale and influence public opinion abroad.

Thus,when the chips were finally down, the notions cultivated in the Soviet-encouraged talk about the supposed presence of conflicting liberal and hardline interests within the Kremlin began to fall away. The KAL-007 incident became the signal for a sudden stiffening of resolve, which indicated the true manner in which the Kremlin machinery worked. So today, in the aftermath of the Georgia crisis, one can detect the beginnings of a change in Russia's foreign policy - the advertised presence of "splits" in Russian power is actually a sign that what may be imminent is not a softening or weakening of will on the part of the Kremlin's leaders, but rather its opposite: and it may point once again to the "war psychosis" that is latent in Russia's defence psychology and military thinking. The psychosis can be traced all the way back to the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 and its main consequence: Germany's (and in both Soviet and current neo-Soviet mythology also West's, and the United States') "betrayal" of Russia in 1941.

Russian harassment of Estonia

It looks like a joke, but behind it there's a serious intent. It’s a minor provocation, of a kind that was last used by the Nazi authorities in Eastern Europe during the 1930s.

From babr.ru (my tr.):

Two farms in north-east Estonia on the border with Russia have declared themselves an Estonian Socialist Republic, and have demanded recognition of their independence.

After recognition the farms intend to separate from Estonia and form a state border.

The farmers' initiative is supported by the Communists of Petersburg and Leningrad District (KPLO).

Here's Komsomolskaya Pravda's coverage.

And the original site is here.

Kremlin propaganda intensifying in Europe

In his Postimees blog, Estonian MP Marko Mihkelson has commented on the recent interviews given by Russian leaders: Vladimir Putin to German television (ARD) and Dmitry Medvedev to Italian television (RAI). The Russian leadership is evidently investing a great deal of time and money in foreign propaganda, in an attempt to show the citizens of what they believe is a divided Europe "who is boss". The latest series of interviews amounts to a kind of "media show" by Russia's president and prime minister. Mihkelson writes (my tr.):

The interviews are a skilful smokescreen. The aim is to deceive the simple-hearted West by the use of philistine methods of the type -- "if it doesn't affect me, it doesn't interest me." Or in other words: the best defence is attack. At any rate, the Kremlin's tactics are transparent. Moscow is trying to do everything it can to play on the weaknesses of Western democracies and open societies, both internally and internationally.

In the most recent interview it's worth mentioning Medvedev's statement today which was directed at the Baltic States.In his interview for Italian television (RAI) the Russian president said that the fears of the Baltic States that they may be the object of an attack by Russia are like "phantom pains". In Medvedev's opinion they are a means by which the Baltic countries keep their political elites "in a slightly excited state". To which one might simply reply: look in the mirror, comrade president.

The English-language transcript of the RAI interview is here.

Yushchenko: Coup underway in Ukraine parliament

Via RFE/RL:

KYIV -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has threatened to dissolve parliament following the collapse of the pro-Western ruling coalition.
In a televised address, Yushchenko said he would use his right to dissolve parliament and call early elections if a new coalition is not formed within 30 days.
He also said a " political and constitutional coup" was under way in parliament.
Yushchenko's party decided earlier in the day to leave the eight-month-old coalition that it forms with the bloc of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
"A new parliamentary coalition has been created de facto in the Verkhovna Rada," Yushchenko said. "The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc has entered into an alliance with the Party of Regions and the Communists. And this creation is based, I stress, not on Ukraine's state interests. The democratic majority has been betrayed by [the creation of] this alliance."

Russia may target Baltic states next

Via The Australian:

NATO must strengthen its defence of the three Baltic countries – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – after Russia's assault on Georgia, the new US envoy to NATO said in an interview.

Speaking to the Financial Times in Brussels after an emergency summit of European Union leaders there, Kurt Volker said it was important that NATO remained "credible".

"Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries we will all respond," Mr Volker told the business daily.

"They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighbouring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit."

Mr Volker said NATO must send signals that it intends to help the Baltic states, and uphold its Article 5, which guarantees the defence of each signatory by all the rest.

Political murder

If any fresh example of fascistic rhetoric emanating from the Kremlin were needed, a clear and plain one could be found in President Dmitry Medvedev's recent characterization of Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili as a "political corpse". Coming from the leader of a state which has lately specialized in political murders of the most despicable kind, the sheer crudity and cynicism of this remark definitely stand out.

One to be remembered.

Strange bedfellows

Edward Lucas has a Guardian op-ed and blog post on the strange phenomenon of Putin's British bedfellows:

It is all very odd. Russia is an oil-fuelled fascist kleptocracy ruled by secret police goons and their cronies. It is authoritarian: critics risk forcible incarceration in psychiatric hospitals, or are simply murdered - such as the shooting dead in police custody of Magomed Yevloyev, an Ingush journalist, this week. It is imperialist: bullying neighbours with oil and gas cut-offs, let alone the occupation of Georgia, where Russia's proxies have practised ethnic cleansing on a scale that recalls the atrocities of the wars in former Yugoslavia. And it is deeply corrupt and lawless: something that even Putin's successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, has acknowledged publicly. However bad other countries may be, it is hard to find anything there worth emulating.

Ramms: NATO will defend Estonia

The following information comes from the Newsru.com web site:

General Egon Ramms, NATO’s Operational Level Commander, is reported to have said on Estonian television today that in the event of military conflict the Alliance will defend Estonia against any aggressor. "NATO has a programme of action on the territory of the Baltic countries in the event that they need to invoke the fifth article of the NATO treaty," Ramms is quoted as saying on Tuesday at a press conference in Tallinn at the end of a two-day visit to Estonia.

Ramm also rejected a statement by Estonian author and former military NCO Leo Kunnas, who had claimed it would take the alliance at least a month to provide military aid to Estonia if a conflict began. Estonian Defence Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Ants Laaneots accused the country's media of creating a climate of nervousness in connection with doubts of assistance from NATO in case of an attack on Estonia. "Newspapers should not continually raise this topic, you will ruin everyone’s nerves," Laaneots is reported as saying. According to him, NATO would be able to come to Estonia’s assistance within at least 7 days after a possible outbreak of conflict.

Tomorrow General Ramms will go to Riga, Latvia.

Putin: Russia will respond to NATO Black Sea presence

Vladimir Putin has told journalists in Tashkent that Russia will respond to what he called "the build-up of the NATO grouping in the Black Sea", but "without any kind of hysteria", Interfax reports. When asked what kind of measures were involved, he said only: "You'll find out."

Putin also claimed that European leaders have begun to use the word “regime” when referring to the Georgian government. “This tends to suggest that it is not a democratic state, but a regime of personal power, the nature of which is in need of examination. Clearly, there is nothing democratic about it,” he is reported as saying.

Sarkozy was, however, apparently using the French word "régime" in its neutral sense of "government". So Putin "misunderstood".

A state of euphoria

Alexander Dugin, interviewed on August 27, 2008 – Excerpt: [my tr.]

“ At present we are in a state of euphoria: we have defeated Georgia’s military machine, destroyed it, have recognized the our friends’ independence. Now we must hold on to that situation. But this is not a local issue. Holding on to the situation does not mean simply preventing a counter-attack by the Georgian aggressors. Now we will have to stave off a massed attack by the United States on the territory of these republics. The most difficult part is still to come: we have won a battle, but by no means the war. In order to deal with this situation, Russia must rebuild its society, its economy, its politics, its media and educational spheres – everything, in fact – along military lines. We have gone to war. We need reinforcement, the consolidation of society. We will never go back to the Russia of before August 8, 2008. We will now stand on the brink of nuclear conflict for a long time. So now, in my opinion, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will become less important than the global restructuring of the world’s architecture with which we dealing. The fate of their peoples is secondary to what now awaits the entire world. For the world stands on the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

- - - -

“The masks have fallen. We have gone to war. Now Russia must fight not only outside but also within, with its fifth column. The liberal westernizers, the employees of all the various NGOs and foundations, must now be interned. In war as in war. If prior to August 8 these people had a right to their point of view, today they have only one right: to be isolated and saved from inevitable retribution, for I do not think that in this situation the patriots will sit idly by. The hour of the patriot is at hand. The hour of revenge for the humiliation that we have endured from these citizens for more than a decade. I think that some Georgian public figures who are particularly active in Russia must also share the same fate, as they are representatives of the country with which we are at war.”

Russian media crow over EU "defeat"

Russian newspapers are almost unanimous in declaring that yesterday's EU joint statement on the crisis in Georgia was a "victory" for Russia, as the statement failed to include a call for economic sanctions. Tvoi Den's headline reads: "Europe to go on sucking our oil and gas - European leaders didn't risk turning their backs on Russia''s energy carriers." The paper calls the line taken by Britain and Poland "hysterical". Izvestia considers that several European countries don't want a serious and protracted dispute with Moscow, and a survey of the British press claims to show that opinion within the U.K. is divided, special attention being focused on an article by political analyst Anatol Lieven published in the Times newspaper. Kommersant sees the result of the EU meeting as a victory for Russian diplomacy, and points to the fact that Europe is to be given a warning in the shape of Gazprom's decision to turn off the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline for "repairs" from today until September 4.

Beslan 4 years on

Via AFP:

The remembrance ceremonies climax Wednesday, exactly four years after a battle between besieging Russian special forces and hostage-takers demanding withdrawal of troops from nearby Chechnya.

But anguish mixed with anger at the authorities in Moscow and here in North Ossetia, a mountainous region bordering Georgia's South Ossetia province, which Russian troops occupied last month.

The head of the survivors' group Voice of Beslan, Ella Kesayeva, said a petition had been filed with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to try to force out the truth.

Survivors want to know why no-one, other than the one surviving hostage taker, has been punished for the episode in which more than 1,000 people were held for three days inside the school.

A handful of police were tried for negligence in allowing a heavily armed group to reach the school on September 1, but they were either cleared or amnestied.

An official enquiry has cleared the security services of blame in the disastrous battle where heavy weapons were used to crush fierce resistance by hostage-takers inside the packed school building.

Many believe there has been a cover-up.

Farewell, Magomed!

At Prague Watchdog, Andrei Babitsky has written an obituary (in my translation) of his friend and colleague Magomed Yevloyev, who was shot and killed by Moscow-backed Ingush security forces in Nazran yesterday.

Definition of terms - 2

A. PROKHANOV: ...I think that events in Ukraine will not be long in coming. I think they will evolve like this, on the instructions of Yushchenko, who is filled with such ferocious anti-Russian energy, who is so brilliant, a Russophobe slightly poisoned with all kinds of stem cell toxins, he is now in a very aggressive mood. There may be a provocation in Crimea. Some clumsy oafs from Ukrainian National Self-Defence will attack a patrol of Russian sailors, they‘ll give this patrol a thrashing, maybe another patrol will arrive to help our patrols and give that UNSD hooligan a thumping in full view of the cameras, there will be a wild scandal, with people saying that the Russians are beating up the Ukrainians, there will be marches there by columns of Ukrainian protesters. But the Black Sea fleet is not just a heap of iron, it is a corps of marine infantry, it is an air force, it is intelligence, it is the infrastructure of our defence, I expect a possible Ukrainian provocation by Yushchenko precisely in Crimea. For some reason I have the impression that President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin , who recently, in rather lapidary form but rather frequently, have expressed their ideas about the current process, made comments about it which suggest to me that they might now make a sort of preventive declaration, warning of the possibility of this provocation and asking the Ukrainian Russian public, the intellectuals, the Ukrainian and Russian patriots, to prevent this potential carnage, because Yushchenko is ready to turn Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia. To witness two fraternal nations quarrelling in this fashion is very frightening, so Mr. Kouchner, I don’t know what his attitude will be to the possible provocation, whether he will be pleased or frightened by it…

Definition of terms

Via Ekho Moskvy [my tr.]:

O. ZHURAVLEVA: Do you expect that there will be a third world war?
A. PROKHANOV: There will be no third world war. The Americans are in no condition to fight a third world war, they have a terrible crisis, their civilization is falling apart, let the Americans pay back all the dollars they owe China. They have a trillion dollar national debt, their richest billionaire, the richest…
O. ZHURAVLEVA: But you also say that it's the most powerful empire there is.
A. PROKHANOV: Don't put words in my mouth. Maybe Pozner says that. What I am saying is that this empire is at its last gasp, their chief imperialist, their richest banker Buffett, (inaudible) Buffet, the richest man in America, he has said that America is in a state of collapse, a catastrophe awaits it. It consumes twice what it produces. America is a vampire that is sucking all the juices out of the world, and the world is refusing to pay it and feed this.
O. ZHURAVLEVA: So why wage war with it then, if it's going to collapse anyway?
A. PROKHANOV: We're not waging war with it, it's the cold war, as a result of the cold war that it will collapse.
O. ZHURAVLEVA: Then why be afraid of NATO or whatever else, let them play their games, who cares, there will be no third world war, because people are not fools, they don't want to destroy themselves. America will collapse of its own accord. So to hell with it.

http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/536528-echo