Georgia/Russia three years on ...

[ichkeria]

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the illegal invasion of Georgia by Russian forces.
Thousands of Georgian residents of South Ossetia remain unable to return to thier homes, either through fear or because those homes have been destroyed during the ethnic cleansing of the area.

So it isn't just Tottenham ...

[ichkeria]

Sorry this should be in News. Can it be withdrawn/moved?

[plautus]

Considering that Georgia was originally annexed to the Soviet Union I can't see what they have to complain about. Apart from its wines the only thing that Georgia gave to the world was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzugashvili, aka Stalin.

[ichkeria]

Perhaps this item is in the right place after all, as plautus's unenlightnened comment is rather a quiz/puzzle to me :-)
Leaving aside the "Stalin" jibe, how does being a former part of the Soviet Union prevent you from "complaining (!)

[argorstran]

From what I remember of that incident ichkeria , the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared war on Russia and he did it while the Olympic opening ceremony was taking place . The Georgians should be grateful to the French President Nicolas Sarkozy for coming up with a peace agreement which spared the Georgian capital Tbilisi from the same kind of mass bombardment which the Georgian army had inflicted upon the South Ossetian capital Tshkinvali .
As for the thousands of Georgian displaced residents , this is indeed very unfortunate . It is always the human beings who lose in war , never the politicians . You must remember that thousands of Russian South Ossetians had their homes destroyed (by the Georgian forces) too .
I hope that relations between the two countries improve , but I think it will be some time in the future when Saakashvili and Medvedev/Putin are replaced by new forward thinking leaders .

[ichkeria]

To argorstran:
I am not going to bore everyone stupid by contradicting your misconceptions of the 2008 conflict. Instead I suggest you read up on the subject rather than relying on your memory (Georgia invade Russia? I don't think so lol - would a country barely the size of N. Ireland invade the largest country on earth? ).
Suffice it to say that, as you say, lots of civilians suffered as a result of this conflict, but although the Russian invasion of Georgia was the culmination, this conflict had been brewing for years, in particular in the months and weeks leading up to August 7 2008.
When President Saakashvili, incidentally one of the regions most forward-looking leaders, came to power, he pledged to secure the sovereignty of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia with in Georgia. However, he pledged to do this by peaceful means, in contrast to the aggression of his predecessor Gamsakhurdia and the inaction of Shevardnadze, who basically acquiesced to Russian mischief in the region.
From this time Russian policy was set against any peace settlement being achieved. An international peace proposal was rejected by the secessionist regime in Tskhinvali, doubtless with prompting from Moscow.
Not only did Russia invade South Ossetia, they also invaded Abkhazia, participating in ethnic cleansing of remaining Georgians there.