Word: russianizing
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Nothing spawns conspiracy theories like war in a remote place. The latest one comes from a singularly well-placed source. In an interview with CNN last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of orchestrating the war in Georgia in order to benefit the candidacy of John McCain. He claimed that "U.S. citizens were indeed in the area of conflict" and that "the only one who can give such orders is their leader." Without endorsing Putin's claim, many European officials reportedly harbor suspicions that there was more American involvement in the crisis than previously reported. That...
...What remains unclear is which one of them moved first. Russia contends that on the night the war began, Aug. 7, they were simply responding to a Georgian attack on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and the threat to the lives of Russian and Ossetian civilians there. But that scenario does not explain the widely documented buildup since the spring of Russian forces just across the border from South Ossetia, which made it possible for up to 150 tanks to cross into South Ossetia within hours of the Russian order to attack...
...Russian officials initially claimed that up to 2,000 civilians died in South Ossetia on Aug. 7 before Russian troops arrived on the scene. That estimate has since been reduced - by Russia - to 133, which is well short of anyone's definition of a "genocide" that would justify a rapid foreign intervention. Representatives of Human Rights Watch, who visited all four hospitals in the region shortly after the battle, say the organization has proof of only 44 deaths that night...
...give the international community time to act. But on the night of Aug. 7, and for three to four days afterward, Georgian officials did not say that Russia had launched its invasion first but only that their forces were responding to stepped-up attacks by 120-mm mortars from Russian-backed South Ossetian forces on Georgian positions...
...There may be a kernel of truth to both sides. Saakashvili may have thought that his forces could stamp out the South Ossetian defense force in one swift strike without provoking a Russian response; indeed, a mistaken belief that Western allies could intervene diplomatically to restrain Russia might have encouraged him in that calculation. For its part, Russia could well have sought to provoke Georgia into such a response (by urging the South Ossetians to step up attacks on Georgian positions) in order to provide them with a pretext to invade...