War Looms Between Russia and Georgia

From Xinhuanet:

Three people have been killed and several others wounded in an overnight shelling in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia.

Irina Gagloyeva, head of the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee, says Tskhinvali, the capital of Ossetia, and surrounding Ossetian villages were heavily shelled by Georgians the previous night.

Earlier on Thursday, the leadership of self-run South Ossetia issued an ultimatum to Georgia, demanding that it stop the shelling at Tskhinvali within 30 minutes, or they would eliminate the armed forces that had filtered into the conflict zone between South Ossetia and Georgia.

Tension has been high between Tbilisi and South Ossetia since late May over the status of the breakaway region.

Remember this word: Ossetia. Ossetia is a province of Georgia (the country, dumbass) that is ethnically Russian--a result of Tsarist Russian Imperialism, Stalin's Russification policy (ironic, because Stalin was a Georgian not a Russian), and borders drawn under the Soviets. Ossetia has been functionally free from Georgia since the collapse of the USSR.

I went to college in Russia for a year and can tell you that there is a deep feeling of solidarity between citizens of Russia and Russians living abroad. Russian nationalism is not based entirely on ethnicity. Rather, to be truly Russian you must be Orthodox as well. One can be ethnically Russian, and still be considered an outsider. This is why Jews never really fit in. In fact, Russians feel a much deeper solidarity with Serbs, who are also Slavic and Orthodox, than they do with Jews, Gypsies, and Asians living in Russia proper. This explains why Russia would not allow approval of a UN resolution authorizing force in Yugoslavia. To Russians, an attack on Yugoslavia is nearly an attack on the motherland itself.

So, the fact that a tense ceasefire has been broken in Ossetia's civil war with Georgia, means that a broader regional war could break out. Georgia also has had long standing border disputes with it's other neighbors. This is bad.

More info below. VOA:

The United States is in diplomatic contact with the Georgian and Russian governments, seeking an end to the flare-up of violence in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Georgian and separatist forces in the area traded heavy gunfire for a second day Thursday.
The United States has been using its good relations with both Georgia and Russia to try to ease the situation in South Ossetia, and officials say new appeals were made to government officials in Tbilisi and with the Russian embassy in Washington amid the latest fighting.

Reports from the area say three Georgian soldiers were killed and at least 40 South Ossetians wounded in two days of clashes in the South Ossetian regional capital and nearby towns.

The region, which borders Russian territory and has a large Russian population, has been semi-independent since a separatist conflict in the early 1990s.

The government of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast, back under central control.

The United States has strongly supported Mr. Saakashvili and the principle of Georgian territorial integrity. At a news briefing, State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli said U.S. officials expressed condolences to Georgian officials over the casualties among their security forces, while also urging both Tbilisi and Moscow to work to end the fighting.

"We are urging Georgian officials to move quickly to avoid further conflict. We're also making the point with Russian officials that it's important to work with the South Ossetian authorities to end hostilities immediately. I would also note that Russia has called for an emergency meeting of the Joint Control Commission, and we support that call," he said.

The joint control commission was created in 1992 after the earlier conflict and includes representatives from Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and the Russian region of North Ossetia.

Russia has maintained a peacekeeping force in the area under a cease-fire arrangement, though Georgia has said it is disproportionately large.

Local authorities in South Ossetia allege that this week's fighting was the beginning of a "well planned aggression" by the Tbilisi government, while Georgian officials denied an attack and accused South Ossetians of shelling villages populated by ethnic-Georgians.

Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the South Ossetia and Abkhazia tensions only a week ago in a meeting here with Mr. Saakashvili, saying the United States was eager to help calm the situation down and avoid provocations by the various parties.

Channel News Asia:

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili warned against "ethnic cleansing" in the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia after fighting there left four Georgian soldiers dead and other people hurt.

"We must not allow for ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population or a humanitarian catastrophe" in the territory, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told reporters as he entered a meeting of the Georgian security council here Thursday.

He spoke after another Georgian official announced that four Georgian soldiers had been killed in mortar and gunfire exchanges with Ossetian separatist forces and an Ossetian spokeswoman said 17 Ossetian civilians were hurt in the fighting.

We must not permit outside forces to create a scenario that would drag Georgia into a large-scale military conflict," the Georgian president said.

He did not specify which outside forces he meant. But South Ossetia has demanded either full independence or else direct rule from Moscow, and a senior Russian official also sounded an alarm over the latest developments in the region.

"The situation is worsening by the hour and could spin out of control at any moment," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Valery Loshinin said in a ministry statement.

Itar Tass:

Georgian armed groups intensified gunfire on South Ossetia's territory after the ultimatum time expired, a high-ranking source in the republic's Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

The South Ossetian president overnight presented an ultimatum to Georgian authorities, warning about a retaliatory strike.

"The Georgian administration and the Georgian Interior Ministry in a talk with us admitted the fact of firing at South Ossetia's territory and assured that an order was given to armed groups and Georgian servicemen in Georgian villages to stop fire," the source said.

Nevertheless, an hour after the ultimatum time expired at 03:00 a.m. Moscow time, machine gun, mortar and antiaircraft gunfire on South Ossetia's territory resumed from the side of the Georgian village of Tamarasheni.

Under the fire were the South Ossetian villages of Sarabuk, Dmenis and Tsinagari and the northern and southern suburbs of the capital, including the area of the municipal hospital, the source said.

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