Thread: RUSSIA PREPARING TO SPLINTER GEORGIA AFTER SARKOZY-BROKERED

RUSSIA PREPARING TO SPLINTER GEORGIA AFTER SARKOZY-BROKERED ARMISTICE

By Vladimir Socor

Monday, August 18, 2008



Despite a ceasefire agreement, a key bridge in Georgia is destroyed, allegedly by Russian forces (LA Times)

The Kremlin is not honoring the French-brokered agreement on cessation of hostilities and troop withdrawal from Georgia. Russian troops are roaming and rampaging at will through parts of Georgia and are preparing to seize chunks of its territory for the long term. Meanwhile, Russia brandishes the threat to dismember the entire country. Such threats reflect Moscow’s goal to reduce Georgia to political obedience by changing the country’s government.

In the process, Moscow embarrasses French President Nicolas Sarkozy by casting doubt on his promise to secure the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia. The Russians are even asking Georgia through Sarkozy to accept larger “security zonesâ€

From The Times
August 19, 2008

Cross us and we will crush you, warns Medvedev
(Dmitrt Astakhov)



President Medvedev made his most hawkish statement yet

Kevin O'Flynn in Moscow
Ceasefire latest: Russia stalls on Georgia pullout

President Medvedev of Russia yesterday promised a “shattering blowâ€

Russia wants to send naval fleet to Venezuela: Chavez

18 Aug, 2008, 0148 hrs IST, AGENCIES

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela.

"Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean," Chavez said on his weekly radio program.

"I told the president (Medvedev), 'If you're coming to the Caribbean, we'll welcome you,'" Chavez said, adding that the Russian naval fleet would pay "a friendly and working" visit to Venezuela.

Under leftist President Chavez, Venezuela has been seeking closer relations with Moscow, in part to buy military hardware, including 24 Russian Sukhoi fighter jets recently delivered, after Washington refused to supply spare parts for the F-16 jets it sold Venezuela in the 1980s.

Over the past few years, Venezuela and Russia have signed 4.0 billion dollars' worth of arms deals, including AK-47 automatic rifles and military helicopters.

"We very much need them here," Chavez said of the Russian weapons. "We've got the helicopters, the Sukoi fighters and we're now considering buying some Russian submarines to patrol our territorial waters," Chavez said.

Chavez on Sunday also repeated his support for Moscow in its conflict over Georgia's separatist territory of South Ossetia, and called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "a puppet of the United States."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/New ... 374649.cms

Russia 'distributing passports in the Crimea'

Ukraine is investigating claims that Russia has been distributing passports in the port of Sevastopol, raising fears that the Kremlin could be stoking separatist sentiment in the Crimea as a prelude to possible military intervention.

By Adrian Blomfield
Last Updated: 7:42PM BST
17 Aug 2008

The allegation has prompted accusations that Russia is using the same tactics employed in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for a war.

Russia handed out passports to the residents of the two provinces, which have long looked to Moscow for support, five years ago. The Kremlin has justified its invasion of Georgia in terms of defending its citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian "aggression".

Mykola Stretovych, an MP with Ukraine's ruling orange coalition, claimed that Russia was engaged in a massive operation to hand out passports in Sevastopol, home to 400,000 people, many of whom have historic ties with Russia.

Anatoly Gritsenko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's national security committee, launched a probe into the claims which, if true, would represent "a threat to national security", he said.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev have grown in recent days after Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-western president, imposed restrictions on Russian ships entering the Black Sea Fleet's base in Sevastopol.

The decision to place limitations on movement to and from the base, which Russia rents from Ukraine, was taken after ships from the Black Sea Fleet were used in military operations in Georgia.

Ukraine further infuriated the Kremlin last week by offering Europe and the United States access to its missile warning systems.

Mr Yushchenko's alliance with Georgia has caused further resentment among the Crimea's overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population. The territory was historically part of Russia but was awarded to Soviet Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.

The head of Ukraine's security service, however, said that despite nationalist tensions in the territory, a rebellion in the Crimea with or without Russian support was inconceivable.

"Prosperity, peace and calm in the Crimea is the very foundation on which the interests of Ukraine and neighbouring Russia coincide," Valentin Nalivaichenko said.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, warned Russia that its actions in Georgia would further increase the alienation of Ukraine towards Moscow. Mr Yushchenko has applied for Ukraine's membership of Nato, a move bitterly opposed by the Kremlin.

"If the Russians intended this as intimidation, they have done nothing but harden the attitudes of the small states around them," she said. "I think the Russians have made a significant mistake here."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rimea.html