Russia Vs Georgia..a widening crisis!

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

Ukraine has decided it could get itself into this conflict...only if they do what theyre threatening to do of course.

KIEV, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Sunday it reserved the right to temporarily bar Russian warships dispatched to the Georgian coast from returning to their Ukrainian base of Sevastopol.

"Ukraine ... reserves the right to bar warships and vessels which could take part in the action (conflict with Georgia) from returning to Ukrainian territory until the conflict is solved," a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry statement.

...

"The Ukrainian side warns the Russian side against the possibility of the Black Sea warships taking part in the conflict over South Ossetia," said the statement posted on the ministry website

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

More at the link but last part there is quite funny...since when does another have the right to tell one how to use its navy?

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

What is certain is that right now the belligerents are fighting over the Kodori gorge. My suspicion is that one plan called for a straight drive from S. Ossetia to Tblisi. That was stopped cold when the armor came under heavy attack, even killing the commander.

So the strategy instead became to sweep Abkhazia of Georgian forces, and land on the coast. If armor can be landed this way, then it would be able to take advantage of the flat terrain. But an amphibious landing I think will take time to arrange. At the very least, the Russians need to do more bombing.

Right now there are no statements coming from either side. Even the "international" reaction is muted. People are just waiting to see what transpired on the ground before putting down their bets. If the Russians can flush out Kodori gorge and land, then Georgia goes to the Russians. If the Georgians hold for 3 more days, that would probably be enough to force a settlement where they lose the disputed land but get some security guarantee.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

Ukraine isn't going to get involved, that's just ridiculous. They're warning they may say, "You're not coming back until you works thing out with Georgia little man, uh, sir."

I don't think Russia's gonna decide to go to war with Ukraine just because they won't let Russia drop anchor. I think Azeri and Armenian involvement is a possibility but they will most likely just be going after each other if things erupt there. The chances of this conflict spreading to other countries in any significant sense are minimal as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms


It appears that reports of Russian setbacks were greatly exaggerated if the Georgians are suing for peace.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

I use to read regularly the chechen rebel site kavkaz center and i noted something strange on there.

Since maybe two or three weeks ago, there was no reports, at all, of any Chechen attacks in Chechenya.
I can be certain of that for at least two weeks.
And they never stopped attacking Russian forces since the start of the second war in Chechnya.
This fact indicates to me that the Chechens are taking part in the war in South Ossetiah.


About Ukraine, that is a unespected move and appears to show
that there was and is an international concerted movement to prepare and launch this war against Russia.
Ukraine is using this moment of tension to assert its desire to expell Russia from Sevastopol.
Now this is a dangerous moment for Russia and it appear that the West is playng hard to really defeat Russia.

Russia hasn´t the capability right now to fight Ukraine, i think that, even more, knowing that 30 % of Ukranians are Russians.

Russia should had constructed another port for its navy, already, in its own territory.
The only option i see now, if Ukraine stand on its threat, is to threaten with nuclear weapons the border of Ukraine and Poland, so that this move will up scale the tension to a point that Ukraine can´t react militarily.

Of course, this is a crazy idea, but it is the only option to stop Ukraine if they really side with Georgia on this war.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

Finn McCool said:

I think that the Georgians thought that the Russians would "let it slide" if they attacked and quickly captured South Ossetia. It was clear that Abkhazia meant more to the Russians. I think Sakashvili thought that they could get away with it, which is obviously a major miscaluclation in light of recent events.

I hope no US troops are killed, because there are several thousand based in Georgia. If they are, things will take an incredibly dangerous turn.

There is a lesson in this for China. Don't attack a seperatist territory that has the explict backing of a major power!

Click to expand...

China is not Georgia, at least not that weak. If the "major power" you mentioned want to back Taiwan, then I hope that "major power" has the stomach to chew China:nono:


On the other hand, Georgians certainly made a serious blunder with this invasion. Now, they will need a Sun Tzu to save their necks.

I heard Geely has a factory over there, hopefully nothing happen with the workers.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

US has furthur decided to help Georgia by airlifting troops as of today, whilst conflict is ranging. Russia should bomb all airfields to prevent landing. We all know they cannot take US military aircraft down.

Russia claims Georgia has American active support is true. I wont be suprised if intel and supplies are also delivered :nono:

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

swoosh said:

China is not Georgia, at least not that weak. If the "major power" you mentioned want to back Taiwan, then I hope that "major power" has the stomach to chew China:nono:


On the other hand, Georgians certainly made a serious blunder with this invasion. Now, they will need a Sun Tzu to save their necks.

I heard Geely has a factory over there, hopefully nothing happen with the workers.

Click to expand...

Taiwan is also not Georgia. Their geographic situation presents much greater challenges, and their military, IMHO, is stronger, particularly air, air defense, and naval...as well as gound forces both in terms of overall numbers and capability IMHO..

...and the US commitment to Taiwan is of much longer standing and much more definitive.

Let's all hope that such theories an d scenarios are never played out in real life.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

I think we can safely say now that the Russians have been able to dislodge the Georgians from Tshkinvali, and the Georgians are probably preparing to defend Gori against attack. I thought that the Russians had already sent a column in the direction of Gori yesterday, but either they didn't or it was turned back.

It seems that the Russians have suffered a pretty good amount of casulaties, but the Georgians have too and Russia's firepower, especially air power has had a telling advantage. I wonder how many Georgian SPGs and MLRS remain operational?

The fighting in the Kodori Gorge is a preliminary operation to clear the way for a larger attack. Putin and Medvedev might not want to do that larger operation but they want the option. If the Georgians can hold on in the Kodori Gorge for, let's say, two days that would an incredible feat. But I don't think it will save them. The Russians will just continue to build up troops, and eventually breakthrough in a big way somewhere if they want to.

On the plus side for the Georgians, their troops from Iraq should be returning right now or sometime soon, and their national call up should really be having effects by now, which will allow them to fill holes in the defences.

Looks like a Georgian attempt to break the blockade has failed:

Russian news agencies report sunken Georgian ship 3 minutes ago

TBILISI, Georgia - Russian news agencies say the Defense Ministry is claiming to have sunk a Georgian missile boat that was trying to attack Russian navy ships in the Black Sea.

Russia's Defense Ministry refused to comment on the Sunday reports to The Associated Press and Georgian officials could not immediately be reached.

If confirmed, the incident could mark a serious escalation of the fighting between Russia and Georgia over the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia.

"Georgian missile patrol boats today made two attempts to attack Russian military ships. The Russian ships opened fire in response and as a result, one of the Georgian ships carrying out the attack was sunk," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

Click to expand...

The Georgians really should have thrown all their missle boast into such an attack, not just two. Concentration is the only hope they have of any missles getting through.

Re: Georgia Attacks South Ossetia, War With Russia Looms

Jeff Head said:

Taiwan is also not Georgia. Their geographic situation presents much greater challenges, and their military, IMHO, is stronger, particularly air, air defense, and naval...as well as gound forces both in terms of overall numbers and capability IMHO..

Click to expand...

that's true, that's why China is building its military, isn't it? And with the growing link between China-Taiwan and the economic dependence between both, can you safely trust all those generals in Taiwan that they will protect Taiwan when China invade Taiwan?

Jeff Head said:

...and the US commitment to Taiwan is of much longer standing and much more definitive.

Click to expand...

oh really? I bet that's what the US said to Georgians too:rofl: that's why they're so confident they can invade South Ossetia. I hope Taiwan learn a lesson here.