It has been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapse. Measured against the post-World War I-era time frame, we are at about the equivalent of 1935. In 1935, no one would have confidently foreseen the major events to come - not just World War II but the invention of nuclear weaponry and the long struggle with the Soviet Union.
American officials have demanded that Russian troops pull back from their positions inside Georgia and that the Russian military presence in the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be limited to the Russian peacekeeping force that was there before the conflict erupted earlier this month.
A ceasefire continued to hold and President Dmitry Medvedev assured his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that Russian regular forces “from tomorrow … will begin withdrawing,” the Kremlin said. However, new tensions gathered over Russia’s longer term military plans in the fervently pro-Western ex-Soviet republic.
The deal obliges all forces in Georgia, a former Soviet republic, to withdraw to positions held prior to the Russian invasion. However, Russian troops - which routed Georgia’s small US-trained army in the fighting for control of South Ossetia - have the right to patrol “a few kilometres” deeper inside Georgia beyond the South Ossetia conflict zone.
Georgia’s pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili announced he had signed the EU-brokered ceasefire during a visit to Tbilisi by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “With the signing of this accord, all Russian troops, and any paramilitary and irregular troops that entered with them, must leave immediately,” Rice said in Tbilisi.
The big news of the week, rather surprisingly, wasn’t the Olympic Games. However, the media still found time to complain about the Chinese government. On the local front, Labor managed to hang on in the Northern Territory, Federal Labor actually made a decision, and Peter Costello waited some more for his book launch.
The move by the Bush Administration to provide humanitarian aid to Georgia raises the stakes for everyone. It has its share of risks. But it puts the onus back on the Russians. It’s one thing to attack Georgian soldiers and to murder Georgian civilians. It’s another thing altogether to do that to the US Army or Marine Corps.
Russians were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to stop Barak Obama being elected president of the United States.
Under a French-brokered ceasefire agreed on Tuesday, Russian and Georgian forces were to return to positions they had before Georgia launched its offensive against South Ossetia last Thursday night. But the Georgian interior ministry said that Russian troops were “destroying” Gori and demolishing installations in the port city of Poti.
President George W. Bush’s visit to CIA headquarters, which ran nearly two hours over schedule, came as US officials tried to work through frequently contradictory and confusing reports from the ground on Russia’s military offensive in the former Soviet republic.