According to this report, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has announced the end of military operations against Georgia.
So is that really it? How disappointed the NeoCons will be. They were getting so excited comparing the Russian military, defending its citizens in South Ossetia, to the Nazis."I have taken the decision to end the operation to force Georgian authorities into peace," Medvedev was quoted as saying at a meeting with defence officials.
"The purpose of the operation has been achieved.... The security of our peacekeeping forces and the civilian population has been restored."
The announcement comes after a day of heaving bombing throughout Georgia.
Georgia's other separatist region of Abkhazia has also launched a military offensive to force Georgian troops out of the upper part of a disputed gorge, Abkhazia's self-styled foreign minister said.
"Our goal is to free the Kodori Gorge of Georgian troops," Abkhazia's Sergei Shamba said by telephone from Abkhazia's Black Sea capital Sukhumi.
Abkhaz officials insisted that Russia, which has boosted its peacekeeping force in the province to 9,000 in recent days, was not involved in Tuesday's military operation.
Like Georgia's other separatist region South Ossetia, Abkhazia is populated by an ethnically distinct group and wants nothing less than full independence from Georgia.
It's clear the action taken by Georgia, as the Olympics began, was not taken without the permission and approval of the United States.
Israel and the United States have had more than 1500 military 'trainers', between them, in Georgia for months gearing up for this clash. But you have to wonder how much of a surprise all this was to President Bush. He looked seriously pissed off when he made his demands yesterday for Russia to pull back to its borders. But was Bush pissed at Putin, his great friend (or so Bush once claimed), or was he pissed at Dick Cheney's office?
We'll probably never know.
UPDATE : President Bush held a short, sharp press conference a few hours after he returned from ogling bikini-clad beach volleyball players at the Beijing Olympics. He said :
"Russia's actions this week have raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region. These actions have substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world. And these actions jeopardize Russia's relations with the United States and Europe."Vladimir Putin's response :
No more fishing trips together at the Bush family estate then."The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing -- the attempt to turn white into black, black into white and to adeptly portray victims of aggression as aggressors...
"They of course had to hang Saddam Hussein for destroying several Shiite villages. But the current Georgian rulers, who in one hour simply wiped 10 Ossetian villages from the face of the earth, … are players that have to be protected."
