Posts Tagged ‘Moscow’
Posted on August 22, 2008 - by Venik
US Confirms It Knew of Georgia’s Plan to Attack South Ossetia
In its August 22 issue, the Russian business daily Kommersant published the interview with the new US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrly. As should have been expected of an experienced diplomat, Ambassador Beyrly said a lot about nothing. Although he did bring up a couple of points worth mentioning. John Beyrly is a fluent Russian [...]
Posted on August 17, 2008 - by Venik
Holbrooke Paid by Saakashvili?
Richard Holbrooke, the former US Ambassador to the UN and currently the vice chairman of Perseus LLC, is now in Tbilisi accusing the cowardly Russian soldiers of stealing pants off the dead bodies of Georgia’s courageous warriors. Holbrooke is claiming that Russia is about to invade Ukraine and is getting ready to take over the [...]
Posted on August 15, 2008 - by Venik
Georgia’s Attack on South Ossetia: Washington’s Role
Elusive NATO Membership At the NATO Summit in Bucharest in April 2008 Georgia was denied Membership Action Plan. Aside from Russia’s vehement opposition, the key issues outlined in the NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan, accepted by Georgia in October 2004, remain unresolved. These issues are: Georgia’s antiquated military equipment, insufficient training and deployability of its [...]
Posted on August 14, 2008 - by Venik
The Cease-Fire Deal and Life in Tbilisi
Mark Deen and Reed Landberg of Bloomberg have beat me to the punch with their Russia’s War With Georgia May Reopen U.S. Rift With Europe. Next time I will have to type faster. If you follow the news from Russia and Georgia, you are probably aware of the extraordinary effort by Nicolas Sarkozy to broker [...]
Posted on August 14, 2008 - by Venik
Russians in Georgia: Goals and Consequences
The Christian Science Monitor – of all newspapers – published perhaps the most relevant and concise description of what Moscow has achieved so far with its blitzkrieg response to Georgia’s sneak-attack on South Ossetia. “If the Russians stop hostilities now, they will have redrawn the whole strategic situation in the Caucasus, to the detriment of [...]
Posted on August 12, 2008 - by Venik
Georgia’s Blunder
Saakashvili’s hysterical propaganda aside, it is now evident that Russia’s operation in Georgia was strictly limited to defending the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgian aggression. Consider the facts: Russia deployed just 6,000 troops in South Ossetia and 9,000 troops in Abkhazia (and even these modest numbers are probably overstated by the [...]
Posted on August 9, 2008 - by Venik
Georgia on a Path to Self-Destruction
I lived in Tbilisi for about a year when I was in sixth grade. Some of my best childhood memories are from that time now more than twenty years ago. My father’s family moved to Tbilisi in 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. My father was three years old then. He spent his [...]
Posted on August 8, 2008 - by Venik
Timeline of Georgia-Russia Conflict
Reuters just published a “TIMELINE – Georgia and Russia’s worsening relations” (August 8, 2008; http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08472548). As the poor and tiny Georgia, under the guidance of its fearless US-educated leader, is desperately trying to start a war with Russia, I find it is important to amend the Reuters’ accurate but incomplete timeline with some of the [...]
Posted on July 26, 2008 - by Venik
The Story of Cuba and Russian Bombers
The news of Russia’s plan to station its nuclear bombers in Cuba has aroused much interest in the US and even drew an official response from a high-ranking USAF general. The only problem with this story was that Russia never had any plans for a bomber base in Cuba. Izvestia – the Russian daily that [...]
Posted on July 19, 2008 - by Venik
Russia Punching Above Its Weight
I was reading the latest Newsweek (July 28, 2008) and came across the “Poisonous Relations” piece by Andrew Wilson and Mark Leonard. These two clowns are senior members of the “European Council on Foreign Relations” (ECFR) – a “think-tank” and an online propaganda outlet set up by billionaire George Soros (the guy who bankrolled Georgia’s [...]
Posted on July 18, 2008 - by Venik
Chicken or the Egg?
The Asia Times daily never fails to impress me with the quality of their analysis of international relations. The Washington Post and The New York Times look like school newspapers in comparison. The recent piece by Ambassador Bhadrakumar – Russia’s energy drive leaves US reeling (Asia Times, July 19, 2008) – is one of the [...]
Posted on July 17, 2008 - by Venik
Who’s Guarding the Nukes?
“Wrong on Russia”, by Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian Studies at New York University (International Herald Tribune, July 1, 2008), is almost a balanced look at the current problems with Russo-American relations. Ten years of systematically ignoring Russia’s interests following the Soviet collapse have ruined America’s relations with the only country that can destroy it [...]
Posted on July 12, 2008 - by Venik
Russia is Pushing Back
The unexpected turn of events during today’s UNSC vote on Zimbabwe stunned even the most seasoned UN diplomats. Senior British and US diplomats at the UN were talking about a “U-turn” in Russia’s position on the sanctions against Zimbabwe. They said that in the G-8 statement Russia was critical of Robert Mugabe and appeared to [...]
Posted on July 8, 2008 - by Venik
Get Tougher with Russia?
British Conservatives are pushing for a tougher line against Russia in view of latter’s growing espionage efforts and new territorial claims. The Conservatives are apparently concerned with Russia’s $189 billion rearmament program and Russia’s claims on the piece of the Arctic (“Britain must get tougher with Russia, warn Conservatives”, by James Kirkup and Duncan Gardham, [...]
