http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc2m8p62_282hrnv3zd6 http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/felgenhauer-on-georgia/ Felgenhauer on Georgia La Russophobe, 19 August 2008 The brilliant Pavel Felgenhauer, writing in Novaya Gazeta and translated by Robert Amsterdam Today it is perfectly obvious to me that the Russian incursion into Georgia was planned in advance; moreover, the final political decision to complete preparation and start the war in August was, it would seem, taken already in April. And the Ossetians intentionally provoked the Georgians, and any kind of response, tough or mild, would have been used as an excuse to attack. And if the Georgians had endured without complaining, then the Abkhazians would have begun, like they now do, a long prepared operation for the «mopping up» of the upper part of the Kodori Gorge. If a war has been planned, an excuse will always be found. Towards August, a significant part of the Black Sea Fleet ships was ready for a lengthy battle sortie, units of constant readiness of the Land forces, the airborne-landing forces and the marine infantry were ready to move, while during the «Caucasus-2008» exercise, which ended on 2 August, a week before the war, the forces of the military-air forces, the military-sea fleet and the army completed the last readiness inspection on a locality at the Georgian border. Concurrently, towards the beginning of August the Railroad troops in Abkhazia completed repair of railroad routes, along which this week tanks were flipped over to Inguri, heavy equipment and supplies for an approximately 10-thousand-strong unit, intruded into Western Georgia without any excuse or formal reason. Naturally, not for any «national-economy aims», as Moscow officially declared, the rapidly repaired railroad was used. The state propaganda apparatus likewise carried out preparations, working over the controlled population with constant reports about an inevitable Georgian attack and about how the USA and the West --for whom this conflict was absolutely unneeded, were standing behind all of this. Naturally, one can not endlessly hold troops and the fleet at 24-hour advance readiness. In October the weather would worsen, snow would close the passes of the Main Caucasian Range. Therefore the second half of August was the deadline for starting a full-scale war with Georgia. At a NATO summit in Bucharest in April, in which Putin took part personally, it became clear that the accession of Georgia and Ukraine to the alliance, although for the moment the decision was deferred, was unavoidable. Russian civilian and military leaders openly warned both the West and the authorities in Tbilisi and Kiev that attempts to «drag into NATO» (in the words of our diplomats) countries that in Moscow are considered traditional patrimonial estate would lead to a crisis. It was declared that Russia «using any means» would prevent the entry of Georgia into NATO, but this did not have any effect on Mikheil Saakashvili. Then events started to develop at an accelerated pace. Putin entrusted the government with «elaborating measures with respect to the provision of targeted assistance» to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which legally meant a denial of Georgia's state sovereignty. Then, a Russian fighter shot down a Georgian drone over Abkhazia. Combat units with heavy attack weaponry were introduced into Abkhazia under the guise of peacekeepers and later railroad troops. There followed a series of manoeuvres, incursions of Russian combat airplanes into the Georgian sky, a factual rejection of a diplomatic settlement to the conflict under contrived pretexts and finally the war, which was supposed to liberate Abkhazia and South Ossetia once and for all of any Georgian population, Tbilisi of Saakashvili, and the Trans-Caucasus of NATO and the Americans. In principle Moscow is even prepared formally to preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia in a form of a kind of confederation and to give the Georgians the opportunity to democratically elect themselves as president anybody whom, preferably, they will approve in Moscow as well. That is precisely the same way the Russian leadership prepared in ’99 the incursion into Chechnya. Then already in early spring, according to the testimony of former premier Sergey Stepashin, a decision on principle was adopted to start the war in August-September. All summer went on engineering works and other preparation for the deployment of shock troops. Putin and his team were then restoring the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation; today, it seems, they have taken to getting the post-Soviet space in line. In ’99 the incursion of Chechen fighters into Daghestan had been the excuse for war, but its unexpected initial success led to a crisis and to the replacement of Stepashin with Putin. Today the unexpectedly mighty strike by Saakashvili – the instantaneous rout of Ossetian formations – also seriously messed up the cards. Moscow could no longer pretend that it was merely the brave Ossetians slugging it out with the Saakashvili regime, while our side was merely attempting to keep the sides separated, establish peace and that was the only reason for it to introduce troops. It became necessary to start an overt invasion, bear losses and subject oneself to western pressure, unbearable for the Russian bureaucracy, integrated into the world financial system. It became necessary to throw the troops into combat in relatively small detachments. Enormous traffic jams arose in the Roki Tunnel (6 km in length), which due to its narrowness can only be used for one-way alternate traffic, on the road to Java and to Tskhinvali. The outdated, dilapidated Russian equipment was constantly breaking down. The evacuation of the wounded and civilians, the approach of volunteers absolutely not needed in the given situation – all led to an enormous logistics crisis, which is continuing today, while the relatively small vanguard forces had to be thrown into combat on a just-in-time unit by unit basis. The elite units, including air-landing forces spetsnaz, pulled forward towards Tskhinvali on 8 August, for nearly two days could not dislodge the Georgians from the city, despite the massive use of artillery, tanks and combat aviation. The Georgians even wounded general Anatoly Khrylev, the commander of the 58th army, who had set out to the vanguard to establish order. The Georgian regular troops only left Tskhinvali on the orders of their political leadership. Deputy chief of the General staff Anatly Nogovitsyn confessed that the armed forces of Georgia are different from those who 15 years ago lost the war to the separatists: «In the present moment this is a modern, well mobilized grouping, outfitted with modern weaponry». After cleaving Tskhinvali, the Georgian troops continued their retreat. By the 11 of August almost the entire army was concentrated around Tbilisi. By that time on the territory of Georgia, including Ossetia and Abkhazia, up to 20 000. of our soldiers had invaded. The vanguard detachments reached Gori, occupied Zugdidi, entered Senaki and demolished a Georgian military base there. Vanguard intelligence entered the city-port Poti. Georgian troops were retreating nearly everywhere, not engaging in combat. Russian troops got far away from their bases of supply, there are too few of them for a successful occupation, their movements through Georgia lost meaning and only led to further losses in equipment due to constant breakdowns. Having ordered a retreat, the Georgian leadership saved the regular army, which with its lightning rout of the Ossetians has elevated its prestige in society. Having saved the army, Saakashvili preserved, as it seems to him, a united Georgia and simultaneously the foundation of his own regime, while he left the task of dealing with the Russian incursion to western leaders and diplomats. In all of its history the Georgian people has lived at the crossroads of warring world empires and has learned a flexibility in matters of survival and an ability to use one strong opponent against another that is beyond our wildest dreams. Some of today’s Russian leaders only imagine that they are acting like Stalin. The demolished military bases and diverse infrastructure will be restored with western money, and in the process new jobs will appear as well. The smashed radars and weaponry will be replaced with newer and better ones. In so doing, Saakashvili has successfully solved his main strategic task – he has internationalized the Ossetian and Abkhazian problems once and for all, which in the end may result in the gradual displacement of Russia and reduction of its influence in the region. Already at the end of June in Tbilisi the French ambassador in Georgia Eric Fournier was declaring in the presence of a «Novaya Gazeta» correspondent: «The international community does not consider Abkhazia and Ossetia a serious problem. We have Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq. Nobody in Brussels regards the possibility of deploying international peacekeeping forces in the region. In any case, the EU does not have spare soldiers for such a little-important question. This is altogether the affair of the Russians, Russia is the key player in the region». Now all has cardinally changed, the Russian incursion has roused Europe. President of France Nicolas Sarkozy has advanced a peace plan, coordinated with NATO allies and with Japan, which envisages an unconditional cease-fire, the return of all refugees, including to Abkhazia, the full withdrawal of Russian and Georgian troops from the zones of conflict and the introduction of international peacekeeping forces, who will likewise include a Russian contingent. The previous format of exclusive Russian peacekeeping is now completely unacceptable to the West, our aggression has crossed everything out. For simple people in the Caucasus, for Ossetians, Georgians, Abkhazians and others such an outcome means real peace, security, huge foreign assistance for the restoration and development of the region. For Russia this can signify a military-political defeat as the result of an apparently successful invasion. It is understandable that the French plan was rejected out of hand as unacceptable by our ambassador in the UN Vitaly Churkin, but then Moscow began to maneuver. Today’s Russia, dependent on the West, can speak a lot about its resurgent might, but in practice things turn out to be a bit different. The problem is not only that the old equipment is constantly breaking down, while the Georgians are busy knocking down our supersonic strategic bombers. All of the Russian leaders, both from the faction of the «siloviki», and the «liberals» – are in essence businessmen-billionaires, their personal interests are linked to the West, with stock market quotes, their main political goal – the «modernization of Russia», while the incursion into Georgia is ravaging all of them today and clearly threatens even greater unpleasantnesses in the future. Retaining the possibility of the integration of Russia with the West, on Tuesday president Dmitry Medevedev declared «about cessation of the operation with respect to imposing peace in South Ossetia». In the words of Nogovitsin, this signifies cease-fire. But nothing yet is finished. In Moscow they are still hoping to depose Saakashvili, although this is unlikely to happen, and any successor of his, for example the exile Irakli Okruashvili, with whom Saakashvili has publicly made peace, will be no better. The conflict is complicated, apparently, by the personal strong enmity between Saakashvili and Putin. In diplomatic and political circles in Tbilisi there is talk about how Saakashvili responded disparagingly about «the Kremlinites» in front of witnesses. In a personal meeting Saakashvili told me for the record that he had heard about these rumors, but he himself had never said anything like this, and « all of this is provocations by the Russian special services». It is insufferable to come to terms with the fact that the hated Saakashvili, who has taken Georgia out of the CIS, has officially declared Abkhazia and South Ossetia occupied territories, and with whom our leaders cannot compete in public street politics, nevertheless remains in power in Tbilisi. Circles around the Kremlin are demanding the creation of a special international tribunal on crimes in the Caucasus. («Novaya gazeta», by the way, considers this an imperative, under the condition that the investigation touches upon all sides of the conflict. – P.F.) However, even if such a tribunal were suddenly to be created, although the International criminal court already exists for dealing with war crimes, then its jurisdiction would extend to the Russian military-political leadership as well, which can in first order find itself under fire for their previous dealings in Northern Caucasus and for the current ones. Once established, the International tribunal would not depend on Russian power, but would be subject to law. According to the testimony of eyewitnesses, onto the territory of Georgia has been introduced through the Roki Tunnel a rocket brigade of the 58th army – «Uragan» systems of salvo fire (RSZO) «Uragan» and «Tochka-U» artillery rockets. «Grad» RSZO systems (122 mm caliber) are extremely inefficient for strikes on cities and entrenched troops, in contrast to the significantly more powerful «Uragan» (220 mm). From the Tskhinvali rayon the «Tochka-U» can hit Tbilisi and the surrounding rayons. The high-explosive-fragmentary warhead of the «Tochka-U» covers three hectares, the cartridge type – 7. The «Uragan» RSZO and the «Tochka-U» rockets were massively used for the bombardment of Chechnya in the years 1999 and 2000, which led to the massive deaths of peaceful inhabitants and destruction. Last week, targets in Western Georgia were pelted from Abkhazia with «Tochka-U» rockets: the launches were registered by the American global system for monitoring missile launches. The Abkhazian powers declared that it was they who had produced the launches of the artillery rockets. Now our side can likewise assert that it is the Ossetians (and not the 58th army) who are delivering strikes against Tbilisi in revenge, supposedly for Tskhinvali. Such strikes, without a doubt, will create in Tbilisi a frightened panic, and perhaps it will still be possible to succeed in overthrowing Saakashvili’s regime. The cease-fire will be very shaky until that moment when foreign peacekeeping contingents enter Georgia.