Русская версияFull-fledged fighting raged in Georgia's separatist region of South
Ossetia on Friday, Aug.
8, making short shrift of an Olympic peace
set to blanket the opening ceremonies in Beijing.
Russia's premier Vladimir Putin and US President George W Bush,
arranged on different sides of the conflict, spoke with "one
voice," according to Putin. "Everybody agrees -- nobody wants to
see a war," the Russian leader said.
But such words fell flat as pro-Western President Mikhail
Saakashvili, a close US ally, ordered a full-scale mobilization to
re-take the separatist region and Russia deployed troops and
fighter jets to "protect its citizens" against Georgia's "dirty
venture."
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Georgia, on the Black Sea coast between Turkey and Russia, was
under Moscow's rule in their two centuries of shared Soviet
history, but this influence has been challenged by the United
States which is trying to win a foothold in the strategic Caucasus
region.
Pretenses of Russian-mediated peace talks scheduled on Thursday
dissipated in the face of the spiraling fighting and analysts
seemed tragically unsurprised to see tension derail to war.
"They have been shooting at each other for months and for a
military analyst like me, it was inevitable," Pavel Felgenhauer, an
independent Moscow-based analyst, told DPA news agency.
"South Ossetia has been routed, that's clear," he said. "Now it
will be a difficult war between Russia and Georgian forces with
South Ossetia taking a secondary role."
After Russian media reported at least 10 of its peacekeepers dead
in the fighting, state-owned Channel One television showed images
of long Russian military convoys moving across into the mountainous
South Caucasus.
Rhetorical collateral
The roughly 70,000 South Ossetians and residents in Georgia's other
rebel region of Abkhazia, who aspire to re-unification with Russia,
became an irrevocable part of Kremlin foreign policy since the
beginning of this year, used as rhetorical collateral in Russia's
disagreements with the West.
With Kosovo's independence in February, Russian opposition took the
form of a threat that its example would provoke a "domino effect"
in the Caucasus.
This fear was no less present in Georgia, which has not recognized
Kosovo's western-supported independence, and Moscow's line served
to amplify separatist claims in the region.
Controversial NATO bid
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Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili wants to protect Georgia's
territorial integrity
Saakashvili has made re-asserting control over the rebel regions a
priority of his presidency, as part of a concerted policy for
rapprochement with the West focused in a bid to join NATO in April.
Then-President Putin projected NATO's eastward expansion as a
menacing betrayal and perpetuation of Western containment policy,
but Moscow's key argument ran contra: That NATO membership would
re-ignite civil war against Tbilisi's control.
Had Tbilisi become a NATO member, the alliance would be obliged to
protect it militarily, pitting Western alliance troops against
Russian fighters -- a fact that did not escape European diplomats
who voted to delay Georgian membership in the alliance despite
Bush's personal backing of the bid.
Dangerous double game
But analysts point out that Russian policy was not all
war-mongering, and Moscow, having lost a dangerous political double
game, may find itself trapped in a war that, if prolonged, could
prove immensely costly. Just before April, Russia ended a 16-month
blockade and resumed air and postal links to Georgia, holding out
the possibility of dropping economic sanctions as well.
Russia's special envoy Yuri Popov arrived in Tbilisi to mediate
peace talks between the two sides on Thursday, even as the fighting
escalated out of control with both sides returning heavy artillery
shelling and making bomber sorties with Sukhoi SU-27 fighter jets.
Now, Felgenhauer said, Russia has made a choice that will drag it
into a prolonged and difficult war because mountains form a barrier
between the region and Russia, leaving only a one-road pass, closed
off in the winter.
"It's a logistical nightmare to try to take South Ossetia back from
Georgia's quite good military," Felgenhauer said. "Massive Russian
intervention may turn out to be costly, not only in terms of human
costs ... it could be politically devastating for Russia's standing
and economy."
Russian-Western rift likely
Georgia, whose army numbers around 18,000 soldiers, had surrounded
the South Ossetia capital on Friday.
Such a war could swiftly create a political rift between Russia and
the West, whose support remains with Georgia for the present, other
Russian observers said.
The United States sent its envoy to the region on Friday.
"We support Georgia's territorial integrity and we call for an
immediate ceasefire," State Department spokesperson Amanda Harper
told DPA.
(Deutsche Welle)
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