The situation with Georgia has now moved on considerably, so I've decided to update and revise this blog entry to reflect the current situation.
Russian troops went to the defence of civilians attacked in a rocket assault on the city of Tshinvali. The barrage claimed many lives. However, a prompt response in defence of these civilians by the Russian army prevented a recurrence of this incident. The army who attacked them (unprompted) have been disarmed and prevented from repeating the attack. Having done this, the Russian Army has withdrawn to its previous positions (agreed with the OSCE).
I was interviewed on VETTA (a Russian tv-station based in Perm' - I've done programmes for them before) about this case, and I said this (translated from Russian):
"Russia has won the moral victory in defending the people of S Ossetia, but it lost the PR battle".
What I meant by that was the Russia got very bad PR during this incident, which it it did not deserve. Of course, the side which attacked the S Ossetians had the advantage of knowing in advance they were preparing for such an attack, and had their PR spin ready.
However, all has ended peacefully. The people of S Ossetia do not need to fear repeated attack by a CIA-backed military force. It hasn't been an easy situation, but an acceptable end was finally found.
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