Turkish Forum

Category: Southern Caucasus

  • Russia Occupies Georgia

    Russia Occupies Georgia

    Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said at a session of National Security Council that the highway passing through Gori is taken under Russia control.

    Saakashvili said that the army should struggle to the end. This is the attempt to destroy and occupy Georgia, he said.

    The humanitarian and moral support from the international community is received, he said but Georgia needs more today.

    “But we want them to stop these barbaric aggressors,” he said. “Our armed forces will carry out regrouping and we will protect and continue fighting for our future,”

    Earlier Saakashvili addressed nation saying that the present events proved that it is a planned occupation and annexation of Georgia’s conflict regions and as a result of it the annexation of the whole Georgia.

    The force entered Georgia is big, serious and is “a fatal threat to the Georgian statehood.”

    The previous statements showed what was behind the Russian actions, he said.
    “Yesterday and the day before yesterday official statements were made that the operation aimed at changing the Georgian authorities, changing Georgia’s course,” Said Saakashvili.

    According to him it means Russia’s aims to end with Georgia’s independence.
    “I want to say with full responsibility that we want to immediately end this military confrontation.” Said Saakashvili, “We want to end the war that we have not launched.”

    Source: Georgia Today

  • EU diplomats fly out to stop Georgia-Russia war

    EU diplomats fly out to stop Georgia-Russia war

    PHILIPPA RUNNER

    Today @ 11:01 CET

    EU and US diplomats are arriving in Georgia on Saturday (9 August) to try to broker a ceasefire in a fast-escalating conflict between Georgia and Russia, after fighting intensified and spread overnight, with casualties mounting despite international appeals.

    Russian jets have bombed the town of Gori near Tbilisi and oil installations in the southern Georgian port of Poti. Georgia has evacuated government buildings in the capital and president Mikhail Saakashvili has moved to a “safe location,” where he formally asked parliament to impose martial law.

    Meanwhile, Russian tanks and Georgian armour continued to pound each other inside the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia, with both sides making wildly different claims over who controls the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

    Georgia says 30 of its men have been killed, while Russia says 15 of its soldiers are dead. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov estimated that over 1,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed, with Tskhinvali in ruins and refugees streaming north across the Russian border.

    The EU delegation is being led by South Caucasus envoy Peter Semneby, with the US sending its top South Caucasus diplomat, Matthew Bryza. Lithuanian foreign minister Petras Vaitiekunas is also going on a separate, fact-finding mission for the EU.

    The French EU presidency says it has had “multiple contacts” and is “in liaison with all the protagonists” to try and stop the fighting, while EU top diplomat Javier Solana has spoken by phone with the Georgian and Russian foreign ministers.

    Diplomatic solution difficult

    Prospects for a diplomatic solution remain uncertain, however, after a second meeting of the UN security council on Friday failed to agree on a ceasefire resolution, with the US and the UK at odds with Russia on the wording of the text.

    France, Germany, the UK and NATO have all urged an immediate end to hostilities, but steered clear of apportioning blame. The US statement was the most hawkish, “deploring” Russia’s use of bombers and missiles as a “dangerous and disproportionate escalation” and calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops.

    The shooting began on 4 August between Georgia and South Ossetian separatists, in what at first looked like just another skirmish in a so-called “frozen conflict” that dates back to 1991, when South Ossetia began a war of independence during the break-up of the Soviet Union.

    But the rebels kept firing on ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia all week. On Friday morning, Georgia launched an offensive to “restore constitutional order” and capture the separatist capital. Hours later, Russia reacted by sending tanks across the Georgian border and ordering air strikes against its small neighbour.

    In the broader context, Russia has long-supported the South Ossetian separatists by smuggling arms, handing out Russian passports and stationing 2,500 Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia, in what Georgia sees as a Russian effort to stop it from joining NATO and to unseat its pro-western government.

    Who is to blame?

    Some analysts are blaming Georgia for the current crisis, saying its attempt to retake Tskhinvali has misjudged the international mood and has destroyed its chances of joining the North Atlantic military alliance.

    “He [president Saakashvili] is in big danger of losing the cachet he built up for himself in being pro-western and the restraint he has often shown in the face of provocation by Russia,” London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs expert, James Nixey, told Reuters.

    “I don’t think he can count on the [US] cavalry riding in,” Brussels’ EU-Russia Centre analyst James Cameron said. “You don’t bring in [to NATO] a country that has this sort of trouble,” RAND Corporation expert and former US ambassador to NATO, Robert Hunter, told Bloomberg.

    European Council on Foreign Relations analyst, Nicu Popescu, said the timing of Georgia’s assault on Tskhinvali – the same day as the opening of the Beijing Olympics – may be significant. “It might be a signal to the Russians saying that the [2014] Sochi Olympics will not go the way Russia wants if there is no progress on the settlement.”

    Geopolitics in play

    Others say the surprise summer war was engineered in Moscow.

    “The goals behind Moscow’s operation are threefold,” Jamestown.org analyst Vladimir Socor explained. “To re-establish the authority of Russian-controlled negotiating and ‘peacekeeping’ formats…to capture Georgian-controlled villages in South Ossetia [and] to dissuade NATO from approving a membership action plan for Georgia.”

    “The Russians want a more direct confrontation with the west and I hope the Bush administration has the wisdom not to give them that satisfaction,” Globalsecurity.org analyst John Pike told newswires.

    “What is being decided here is whether bordering Russia and simultaneously being a US ally is a suicidal combination. Whichever way this works out, the dynamics of the entire region are about to be turned on their head,” Strategic Forecasting Inc said in a flash report.

  • What will be the outcome of the Georgian-Ossetian war?

    What will be the outcome of the Georgian-Ossetian war?

    MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) – The very real possibility of full-scale war between Georgia and South Ossetia raises questions about its possible outcome.

    At present, the Georgian armed forces have more than 30,000 men, including 20,000 ground forces. They are equipped with more than 200 tanks, including 40 T-55s and 165 T-72s, which are currently being upgraded. Apart from tanks, the ground forces have 200 combat armored vehicles, including about 180 infantry combat vehicles and armored personnel carriers (APCs). The ground troops can receive artillery support from 120 artillery pieces of 122 mm-152 mm caliber, 40 multiple-launch rocket systems, and 180 mortars.

    The Georgian Air Force is equipped with five Su-25 (Frogfoot) close support aircraft, 15 L-29 and L-39 combat training aircraft, which can be used as light assault planes, and 30 helicopters, including eight MI-24 attack helicopters.

    Available estimates put the South Ossetian forces at a mere 2,500 officers and men, or 16,000, including reservists. They are armed with 15 T-55 and T-72 tanks, 24 Gvozdika and Akatsiya self-propelled artillery units, 12 D-30 towed howitzers, six multiple-launch rocket systems, four 100-mm Rapir anti-tank weapons, and more than 30 mortars. In addition, the South Ossetian army has 22 infantry combat vehicles, 24 APCs, and six combat patrol vehicles.

    The infantry is equipped with small arms of Soviet or Russian make, and has several dozen Fagot and Konkurs anti-tank rocket systems. Its air force consists of four MI-8 multi-purpose transport helicopters. South Ossetia can defend itself against air attacks with four to six Osa, three Tunguska, three Shilka, and six Strela-10 air defense rocket systems. It also has 12 23-mm ZU-23/2 twin antiaircraft guns (some of which are mounted on GAZ-66 trucks), and up to 100 Igla and Strela man-portable air-defense missiles.

    A forecast of the outcome of this war (as well as a potential conflict with Abkhazia) cannot be based on mathematics alone. In the mountains, even a very small unit can resist a numerically much stronger enemy. In this case, the outcome of the conflict will primarily depend on the training of forces and the influence of third parties.

    The training of the Georgian army is not likely to have changed much in the last two months and, with the exception of a few units, it is not rated too high. Like the Abkhazian armed forces, South Ossetian armies are better trained and motivated. Moreover, the Abkhazian leader has already expressed readiness to support South Ossetia in a war against Georgia.

    Georgia can win only if it is backed by the United States and its other allies. And even with such support, its victory will mean heavy losses, and entail lengthy guerilla warfare.

  • Russia’s military aircrafts bomb Marneuli for the second time

    Russia’s military aircrafts bomb Marneuli for the second time

     

     
     

    [ 08 Aug 2008 19:47 ]
    Marneuli – APA. Russia’s military aircrafts bombed Marneuli, city compactly-settled by Azerbaijanis, for the second time.

    APA reports that the aircrafts dropped two more bombs on the military aerodrome a few minutes ago.
    Casualties were reported in the first bombing.

     

     

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    Chairman of Public Union “Georgia is my motherland”: Four were killed as Marneuli aerodrome was bombed

     
     

    [ 08 Aug 2008 19:45 ]
    Baku. Tamara Grigoryeva – APA. Four Georgians were killed as Russian military aircrafts bombed Marneuli aerodrome, chairman of Public Union “Georgia is my motherland” Ali Babayev told APA.

    He said that there were no casualties among the Azerbaijani workers of the aerodrome. Babayev said Russian aircrafts bombed the aerodrome twice. The first bomb fell on take-off strip and the second one on the canteen.

  • Russian aircraft bombing Tbilisi took off from Armenia

    Russian aircraft bombing Tbilisi took off from Armenia

     
     

    [ 08 Aug 2008 18:12 ]
    Moscow – APA. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that additional forces had been sent to support peacekeepers in Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

    The ministry said necessary assistance would be offered to the Russian peacekeepers and citizens of unrecognized republic. North Caucasus military district said that Russian combat equipment entered Tskhinvali. Georgian new agencies report that Russian military aircrafts bombed Vaziani base near Tbilisi at 15.10 by local time. Two bombs were reportedly dropped on the military base. No casualties are reported in the base. Gruziya Online website reports that the aircraft that bombed Vaziani base had taken off from the territory of Armenia. The agency mentions that there is an air regiment in Russian army’s 102nd base in Gumru, Armenia. According to the agreement signed between Georgia and Armenia, Armenia can not allow any other state to attack Georgia from its territory.

    U.S. President George Bush met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Beijing and called on the parties to cease the fire in Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone immediately. European Union and OSCE released analogous messages.

  • Armenia Concerned About South Ossetia Fighting

    Armenia Concerned About South Ossetia Fighting

     

     

     

     

     

    By Ruben Meloyan

    Armenia joined the international community on Friday in expressing serious concern about the outbreak of deadly fighting in South Ossetia that threatened to degenerate into an all-out war between neighboring Georgia and Russia.

    The Armenian Foreign Ministry said official Yerevan is closely monitoring the situation and urging the conflicting parties to call a halt to military operations..

    “We are certainly concerned about the situation and hope that a solution will be found very quickly,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanian told RFE/RL. “We hope that the parties will make maximum efforts to quickly stop bloodshed and find peaceful solutions to contentious issues,” he said.

    A separate statement by the Foreign Ministry said Armenia’s embassy in Tbilisi and the consulate general in Batumi have been instructed to be “in constant touch with Georgia’s central and regional authorities.” It said the diplomatic missions will also provide “necessary assistance” to Armenian citizens in Georgia who will wish to return home.

    Georgian troops launched a major military offensive on Friday morning to regain control over South Ossetia which had won de facto independence from Tbilisi in a 1992 war. They reportedly seized much of the regional capital Tskhinvali by early afternoon, triggering a Russian military intervention.

    News reports from South Ossetia said a convoy of Russian tanks and other military vehicles was moving towards Tskhinvali from Russia’s republic of North Ossetia later in the day. Also, Georgian government officials said Russian military aircraft bombed Georgian army positions in South Ossetia and the Vaziani military airbase near Tbilisi. The airbase is less than 50 kilometers from Georgia’s border with Armenia.

    Observers believe that a large-scale Russian-Georgian war is a nightmare scenario for Armenia, which uses Georgia’s territory as its main commercial conduit to the outside world and maintains close political and especially military ties with Russia.

    The spiraling hostilities prompted the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to call a special meeting of its decision-making Permanent Council in Vienna on Friday afternoon. Finland, the current holder of the OSCE’s rotating presidency, warned that the conflict could escalate into “a full-fledged war.” “War would have a devastating impact for the entire region,” Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said in a statement.