Russia Expands Into Georgia Proper

12 August 2008Russia's military expanded its presence in Georgia on Monday, seizing a military base in the Georgia proper and bombing Georgian military targets.

Moscow also moved 9,000 paratroopers and military equipment into Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia.

Georgia said late Monday that Russian forces had also seized the town of Gori near the separatist region of South Ossetia, a claim denied by Russia.

The developments came amid a pledge from a senior Russian commander that Russian forces would not move beyond Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin put up a united front against the West, which they accused on Monday of improperly backing Georgia, and Putin likened Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Georgia's Defense Ministry said Russian armored personnel carriers seized the military base in Senaki, about 35 kilometers from the Black Sea port of Poti, on Monday.



In Moscow, a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name, confirmed the move into Senaki and said it was intended to prevent Georgian troops from concentrating, Reuters reported.

Russian planes continued strikes against the Georgian military and industrial infrastructure outside the borders of the separatist regions, Georgia's Foreign Ministry said.

The targets included a military base and airport near the town of Senaki, the Shiraki airfield, a tank battalion based in Gori and a civilian radar station near Tbilisi, the ministry said.

In Moscow, the Defense Ministry said in a statement that 9,000 Russian paratroopers and 350 armored vehicles were sent to Abkhazia on Monday "to avoid a repetition of the South Ossetian scenario."

Together with Abkhaz forces, the troops blocked several Georgian military units in the Kodor Gorge. The Russian military demanded that the trapped Georgian troops and Georgian forces based in the nearby Zugdidi district lay down their arms but to no avail, said officials on both sides.




Medvedev said the Russian military had taken control of Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia.

"We have completed a considerable part of the operation to force Georgian authorities toward peace in South Ossetia," Medvedev said at a government meeting held in the Defense Ministry in Moscow. "Tskhinvali has been taken under control by a reinforced Russian peacekeeping force."

Georgian forces, whom Russia accuses of attempting to reclaim the separatist region by force Friday, shelled the bases of the Russian peacekeepers early Monday, killing three servicemen, the Russian military said.

In total, 18 servicemen have been killed and 14 have gone missing, a deputy head of the General Staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, told reporters.

It remained unclear Monday how many civilians have died in the fighting. Russia has put the figure of killed South Ossetians at 2,000, while Georgia has said up to 300 Georgians have died.




Saakashvili signed on Monday a cease-fire agreement drafted by the foreign ministers of France, Finland and Georgia. The foreign officials were expected to come to Russia from Tbilisi late Monday to ask Russian leaders to sign the document too. The agreement calls for the return to status quo ante, Saakashvili said.

As a precondition to any negotiations with Georgia, Moscow has demanded that Georgian forces withdraw from South Ossetia and the Kodor Gorge, a part of Abkhazia controlled by the Georgian military, and for Tbilisi to promise not to use force to deal with the separatist republics in the future.

Medvedev, meeting the leaders of the State Duma factions in the Kremlin on Monday, cautioned the West not to flirt with "aggressors."

"I will remind you that history has plenty of examples of pacifying an aggressor. Western countries were engaged in this 70 years ago," Medvedev said, referring to the Munich agreement of 1938. The agreement, signed by Germany, Britain, France and Italy, "untied the hands of the Hitler regime" to annex and occupy part of the former Czechoslovakia, he said.



Speaking with Finnish President Tarja Halonen earlier Monday, Medvedev suggested sending a mission from the Organization for Security and

Cooperation in Europe to South Ossetia, the Kremlin said. On Tuesday, Medvedev is scheduled to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, to discuss the conflict.

Putin, addressing a regular Monday government meeting, took a harsher stance, saying the West had supported the likes of Hussein just because they were U.S. allies.

"Of course, Saddam Hussein had to be hung for his destruction of several Shiite villages. But as for the current Georgian leadership -- who in one hour razed 10 Ossetian villages to the ground, who crushed children and the elderly with tanks, who burned alive peaceful citizens in barns -- these 'activists' should of course be protected," he said, reverting to an earthy sarcastic tone that was a trademark of his presidency.

"If my memory serves me right, it was Ronald Reagan who said in relation to one of Latin America dictators a while ago: 'Somoza, of course, is a son of a *****. But he's our son of a *****. And we will be helping him, we'll protect him,'" Putin said.


"A lot has changed since that time. The world has dramatically changed. The Cold War is no more. But this mentality of the Cold War is deeply ingrained in the heads of some of American diplomats," Putin said.

Russia, he said, will nevertheless follow through on its "peacekeeping mission."

Nogovitsyn of the General Staff said Russia had no intention of moving deeper into Georgian territory. "We do not have any initiative to invade anywhere. We are performing peacekeeping functions," he said. "Our clear position is to keep the status of peacekeepers."

On Sunday, Russian jets targeted a plane-building plant near Tbilisi and Tbilisi's civilian airport, while Russian vessels imposed a blockade of Georgian Black Sea ports, the ministry said.

Late Sunday night, the Russian Navy said it had sunk a Georgian missile boat near Poti.

Russia is trying to inflict as much damage as possible to Georgia's military might to prevent it from re-engaging in conflict, said Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior researcher at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis.

"This is a usual practice in such conflicts -- recall the U.S. bombings of Serbia or Iraq in the late 1990s," said Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting, a research center.

The purpose of the bombings of airfields and of shutting down Georgian ports is to prevent Georgia from getting new supplies of arms from its allies, he said.

Georgia is a strong ally of the United States and is an aspiring NATO member. It had even sent servicemen to Iraq to support the U.S.-led military operation there, but they have been recalled to beef up Georgia's forces at home.

Nogovitsyn said Georgia had shot down two Su-25 fighters on Sunday. The military said earlier two other planes had been shot down on Friday and Saturday.