Word: russian
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...presence of Moscow's forces in Georgia has started to create a new reality on the ground. One objective of the Russian occupation until now has been to "confuse the enemy" as to their real intentions in the country, says David Smith, director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center in Tbilisi. That is certainly the effect of the combined talk of withdrawal and the stationary though not inactive presence of the occupying troops. The Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili estimated that Russian soldiers are nominally in control of 30% of Georgian territory. The troops have used the past week, since...
...past week, along the main road that links eastern and western Georgia, columns of Russian artillery and troop trucks could be seen rumbling first towards the capital, then in the opposite direction, then off the road into the surrounding countryside. Reports of their withdrawal or advance based on such movements are picked up by government spokesmen in Tbilisi and broadcast around the world...
...Georgians are increasinly bewildered. Dali Sachaleli, 42, was visiting her ailing mother in the area from her home in Tbilisi and said that all night she listened to Russian armor and tanks clank about the fields and homes around her family home. "People say they are leaving [mines] behind for when they leave," she told me on the road nearby. "We don't know what they are doing." She and other villagers used to picnic by a lake on top of the hill, but have stopped going because of fears of mines. (There are no confirmed reports of mining...
...Many observers believe a key long-term goal of the occupation has been to undermine the authority of the Georgian government - and President Saakashvili in particular. Attempts by Georgian security officials to assert authority over the Russian troops have been summarily dealt with. Earlier this week, about 20 Georgian security personnel attempted to stop a small Russian column from entering the port at Poti. The Russians handcuffed them and took them prisoner. When a Georgian police car tried to block a Russian tank from progressing down a country road west of the capital, the tank simply rolled over it (there...
...there is no sign that Russia's attempts to humiliate his government have weakened Saakashvili politically. Indeed, the occupation appears to have united Georgians. But in some areas under Russian control villagers are beginning to wonder whether muddling through in some kind of collaboration with the power on the ground is not preferable to war. In Gori, now largely abandoned after the Russian bombings, farmer Giorgi Chikladze says he hopes he can now sell his peaches to Russia , where he says he would get higher prices than in Tbilisi. In the old days when Georgia was still under Soviet rule...