Word: saakashvili
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...last Thursday after Georgia sent its military to reclaim control of the territory, which has enjoyed de facto autonomy under Russian protection since 1992, and Russia launched its own offensive against Georgian forces. And as of Sunday, it appeared that both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had painted themselves into a corner. The Russians face the dilemma over how far to push their "punishment" of Georgia for its attack on South Ossetia; the Georgian leadership faces the reality that the stated objective of its military operation - to recapture the breakaway region - is unlikely to be achieved...
...population of South Ossetia - and the wider Caucasus region - now finds itself trapped between the reckless adventurism of Saakashvili and what President George W. Bush called Russia's "disproportionate use of force...
...When Saakashvili unleashed a massive artillery-and-rocket barrage on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali last Thursday night, the Russian response was all too predictable: having jealously guarded the territory's autonomy from Georgia as a point of leverage against Tbilisi's desire to join NATO, Moscow launched an offensive of its own, fighting Georgian forces inside South Ossetia and bombing cities inside Georgia proper. Meanwhile, separatist forces in Abkhazia, another Moscow-backed separatist Georgian province, opened a second front against Georgian forces, while Russia's Back Sea Fleet sailed from its base in Ukraine to impose a naval...
...fully supported their Ossetian and Abkhazian counterparts as a tool against Georgia's tilt toward the West. Moscow issued Russian citizenship to over 90% of the population of both entities and deployed "peacekeeping" forces sympathetic to the separatists to police the de facto lines of secession. So when Saakashvili turned his artillery on Tskhinvali, killing hundreds of civilians and over a dozen Russian peacekeepers, "Russia had to move in, if only to save face," contends Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center. The Russian offensive to recapture the city finished the job started by Saakashvili - Tskhinvali lies in ruins...
...They should either kill me or organize a second round of elections.' LEVAN GACHECHILADZE, Georgian opposition leader, after his resounding defeat by pro-Western incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili in the country's Jan. 5 Presidential elections. Gachechiladze claimed the voting was rigged...