Saturday, August 9, 2008

Kremlin's adventures in Caucasus are wrong

Yesterday I just mentioned about the conflict escalation between the self-proclaimed South-Ossetia and the Republic of Georgia forces. Yesterday night there came rather bellicose announcements from the Kremlin bosses and today there is a full scale war going on between Georgian and Russian forces without even declaring a war. Georgians call it invasion of Russian forces in its territory while Russians call it euphemistically "peace enforcement" operation.



Picture: University of Texas

CNN an BBC have quite a good coverage of the conflict. There is a propaganda and cyber war going on in the meantime. I just watched the interview with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Mr Serguei Lavrov. Reporter asked whether the Russian Federation plans to continue with a full scale war with Georgia. Russian minister resolutely answered no. Further on Mr Lavrov rebuked Georgia's president Saakashvilli's statement about the Russian invasion as a preparation for similar adventures in other former Soviet republics and thus undermining the peace efforts in Europe as rubbish. Mr Lavrov was particularly referring to Baltic States. He accused the Baltic States and particular politicians in Estonia for having territorial demands from Russia, and thus undermining the peace in the region.

After hearing such announcements I cannot not to forget the past events, because the timing of the Russian adventure reminds me about the "tradition"of Soviet comrades to annihilate their weaker opponents while world's attention is driven away.

Just to remind you that when Nazis were marching on Paris in June 1940 the Soviet forces occupied the three Baltic States. When Suez crisis was culminating in 1956 the Soviet forces started suppressing Hungarian revolution in Budapest. During the height of the Kuwait war the Soviet paramilitary forces started onslaught on Vilnius TV tower in Lithuania, and later the Latvian Interior Ministry.

So, here we go with the Russian adventure in the brake away region of South Ossetia that has spilled over to Georgia proper. Apparently the Georgian port city Poti has been levelled by the Russian air force, and Georgians reported about gunning down Russian planes. Anyway, the war correspondents will deliver news from the war zones. But I am trying to reach out with this piece to ones who are in Georgia now, or who are in contact with Georgians on ground. You are on the front line now and knoweth that there are thousands of people in the Baltic States who attentively follow what happens in Sakartvelo.

If Nino Dzotsenidze, Sophy Megrelidze in Tbilisi and Armen Grigoryan in Geneva happen to read this peace just respond to this message, and thus I would learn your new e-mails.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Currently in the bottom of Chile I was looking forward to your note on the situation, since it is hard to get a proper coverage.

Do you really thing - and if yes to which extent - that there is still any likelihood that Russia enters a war against Baltic States, now members of EU and NATO ?

Veiko Spolitis said...

Hola Sebastien,

Como esats en Chile:) No, not in such a blatant form as in Georgia. But to avoid the wish of Kremlin policy makers to caontemplate about it, the domestic policy should be in order in LAT & LIT and foreign policy must be properly coordinated between the 3B.

KT said...

please sign and distribute petition for peace

http://www.petitiononline.com/peacege/petition.html

jade said...

I am very excited that the entries from all three Baltic countries advanced from their respective semi-finals to the Baltic Adventures