Word: saakashvili
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...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 a de facto ceasefire came into effect, to methodically destroy "Georgia's strategic infrastructure," says Smith. "They're knocking them back into the stone age." Throughout Georgian territory, Russian...
...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...
...defense contracts, although those currently in effect will be fulfilled. Israel stressed that the contracts are to provide equipment for defensive purposes. But if the Israelis were looking to downplay the significance of military ties, they weren't helped by comments like Yakobashvili's - or by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's enthusing at a press conference earlier this week that "the Israeli weapons have been very effective...
President Saakashvili has noted that both his minister responsible for negotiations over South Ossetia (Yakobashvili) and his Defense Minister, Davit Kezerashvili, had lived in Israel before moving to post-Soviet Georgia. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Georgian leader this week enthused that in Tbilisi, "both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews." Working through the Georgian Defense Ministry (and with the approval of its Israeli counterpart), Israeli companies are reported to have supplied the Georgians with pilotless drones, night-vision equipment, anti-aircraft equipment, shells, rockets and various electronic systems. Even more important than equipment...