Abkhazia - S.Ossetia vs Georgia Situation

I think if Georgia joins NATO then Russia should do 2 things:

Actually, I think Russia should state at UNN that declaration of joining NATO from any country will be viewed as a declaration of war with Russia. We should not allow any NATO infrastructure to appear even closer to our borders. NATO is the only warmonger organisation in the world, except for half-fictional Al-Quaida

Is there concrete proof he explicitly ordered that?

He was the Supreme Commander! Of course there are proofs. Don't tell me it was a tank company commander who decided to shoot at the peacekeepers barracks by himself.

Anyway, a just court (preferably Russian) will find truth, and until then Saakashvilli should be arrested

As for the general shelling of Tskinval, like I said, we gonna prosecute Putin?

Is Putin bombarded Tshinvalli? And don't switch our conversation on a different topica, Chechnia isn't an excuse for any state criminal. Saakashvilli bombarded Tskinvaly without a warning - look what Putin did (the federal forces never bombarded a town without a warning btw); Poroshenko ordered bombardment of Novorussia - look what Putin did. Hitler invaded the USSR - look what Putin did. Elizabeth Bathory took baths of virgin blood - look what Putin did.

May be you tell us about athrocities the federal forces committed in Chechnia? About real ones, not that were imagined by western press? Of cource it was a war and there were accidental civilian kills, but don't precision weapons-filled US Army killed 10 times more people in Iraq than the federal forces did with 80's era weapons designed for a conventional war?

TR1 wrote:

Werewolf wrote:Was about time that this bastard is getting prosecuted openly.

We gonna prosecute Putin for Chechnya next?

Putin didn't start Chechnya, he finished Chechnya.

Are we going to prosecute Putin for repulsing an invasion by an Islamist dictatorship onto Russia's own territory and then overthrowing the warlords there in response?

I don't think it was as bloody as the 1st war, nowhere near, but either way it was very neccessery.

Mhm, the invasion of Dagestan justifies the conduct of the war in Chechnya, the indiscriminate shelling of population centers (often with inadequate evacuation corridors), the filtration checkpoints, the mass graves....

Nah who am I kidding. This is "Russia can do no wrong.com".

Putin wanted war in Chechnya from the very start, that is obvious.

TR1 wrote:Mhm, the invasion of Dagestan justifies the conduct of the war in Chechnya, the indiscriminate shelling of population centers (often with inadequate evacuation corridors), the filtration checkpoints, the mass graves....

Nah who am I kidding. This is "Russia can do no wrong.com".

Putin wanted war in Chechnya from the very start, that is obvious.

From post to post you show more that you are americanized than you want others to believe.

The Point is Sackarschwilli did it on Purpose because Washigton gave him Green light to attack russians and cleanse South Ossetia in exchange they would gave NATO membership that was the bait, no little asshole of dictator would ever attack a Nuclear Power if they did not believe they were either capable of that or having the back petted by another Nuclear Power and that is the case.

Putin did not start Chechnya that was Jelzin and Putin did not order to Attack soldiers of another country nor did he command any atrocities. Accidentley having colleteral damage and intentionally target civilians is a big difference and if you wanted to prosecute every President that had ever any military use against whatever forces than Putin would be on the Last place to be prosecuted long before that all NATO countries and their Arab lapdogs would be sued for hundreds of atrocities for decades before it would be Putins row.

TR1 wrote:Mhm, the invasion of Dagestan justifies the conduct of the war in Chechnya, the indiscriminate shelling of population centers (often with inadequate evacuation corridors), the filtration checkpoints, the mass graves....

Grozny was basically a militant stronghold, Russia retook it within fairly short order with minimal casualties on its own side and with the help of an allied Chechen militia - I scarcely imagine that the civilian casualties were so high this time.

As for the conduct of MVD OMON, regular army forces and so on; I think it was again, better than in the first war - simply because this time Russia rapidly took over and chased all the rebels and terrorists into the woods.
But let's say that loads of atrocities happened. How is this Putin's fault? He did the job with the forces that he had available to them, he had no time to give them lectures on the Geneva Convention - Russian forces were pressed immediately into action into liberating Dagestan and then liberating Chechnya from its own tyrants.
It was completely neccessery to use military force in this case, and it was also completely unavoidable.
Speaking cynically, even with the abuses of prisoners, civilians, etc... during the 2nd war, this was still preferable in humanitarian terms to allowing Ichekeria to exist in any form or shape considering the sort of things that were going on there.

Putin wanted war in Chechnya from the very start, that is obvious.

I'd bet he sure as hell did, I sure would want a war with them too, restoring constitutional order in a place like 1999 Chechnya would be the first thing I would do as president, and if a reason didn't exist for me to do so then I would make one up, and be completely within my rights morally speaking.
But Putin didn't even have to do that in the end.

Imagine you took control of a country but hey look there was a Sharia-shithole on its territory which trained Islamic terrorists from all over the world, organized raiding parties for slaves (including young kids) and plunder on neighbouring Russian regions, built up ties in the N. Caucasus with Islamist intelligentsia elements and goaded them into action (as witnessed during Dagestan 1999), was the source of a massive amount of human rights abuses, etc...
Allowing such a place to exist on Russia territory was like that Austrian keeping and raping his daughter in his basement for 19 years. Obviously something had to be done and done immediately.
Getting rid of this festering hell-hole was a decision that was made before Putin even took power as president and it was completely neccessery and justified, if not forced due to circumstance then Putin would have invaded them before long anyway - and rightly so.

Eeeeeeooooooo...EEEEeeeeeeeoooooooo.

Was just wandering if I can hear my echo in here...
What's going on here lately guys?

People answer questions that were never asked, attack points that were never risen and generally fail to comprehend others' posts.
It's like we're in a large cave not seeing each other, in the dark, with our backs turned and can only muster to hear a couple of words that echo around the cave...and only reply to those few words...the reply is completely out of context...

Not to mention posters that try to be witty in their replies, the wittiness obvious only to the author...
It's almost as if I'm watching a session in the Macedonian Parliament.

Can we please go back to having a [somewhat] meaningful discussion?
You know, actually read the posts and reply accordingly? Not trying to mimic a mod here, merely stating how I feel lately.

OK, now back ontop...

Both TR1 and Sepheronx raise really good points.

Killing civilians in a war is never good strategy. And for plethora of reasons. Among the more obvious (strategically) is the fact that you create enemies further down the line, you have a hostile population to deal with later on, and you lose the support of many of your own troops. They become disillusioned with the army, state etc. I've read a few interviews with Russian soldiers who served in Chechnya and have turned pacifist since, some even considered converting to Islam (because of guilt). Killing civilians is also a disaster from a PR point of view.

Now, FP does raise a valid point here, and that is the fact that Putin had to work with what he had at the moment. The Russian army back then, isn't the same army we saw in Crimea, and that's very good! The professionalism showed in the Crimea where many Russian soldiers were trolled by Ukrainian journos (while videoing the whole thing) and never overreacting should be the standard of the Russian soldier, not the poorly equipped, poorly fed, poorly disciplined [many reported cases of looting] soldiers wearing many different cammo's that were the laughing stock of 'the west'.
Chechnya was both a win and a disaster IMHO. But that's in the past. The focus now should be on reaching out to the population, and giving them hope for the future. Not sure if Kadyrov is the right man for the job though...

Macedonian, they did not target civilians in Chechen war and defintely not intentionally, they had already a rough time and civir losses and the resources they got on hand were limited and aiming for civilians would not be in their interest from no stand point, the only thing they may be guilty of is bad planning and overhasted actions that may resulted in civilian casualties. There is no point wasting valueable resources on unnecessary targets which will only achieve the opposite of what your actual goal.

Does anybody at all seriously dispute that he ordered the operation?
AFAIK the evidence against Saaks is his legal role as commander in chief and that he publicly defended the operation and never disavowed it,
(the exact details of his role would probably depend on which version of his every-changing story is being used)
and ministers in government with him at the time have later stated that he had explicitly pushed for the operation,
as a totally "elective" operation, i.e. political decision, breaking the status quo peace legally defended by Russian troops.
Certainly if one uses the rationale of ICTY "joint criminal enterprise" whatever, that is pretty much a sealed case on just that basis.

Honestly, this story seems more focused for internal consumption in Russia than a realistic plan to take him into Russian custody.
More relevantly, Saak's already wanted for questioning over involvement in murders and other capital cases in Georgia itself.

Werewolf wrote:Macedonian, they did not target civilians in Chechen war and defintely not intentionally, they had already a rough time and civir losses and the resources they got on hand were limited and aiming for civilians would not be in their interest from no stand point, the only thing they may be guilty of is bad planning and overhasted actions that may resulted in civilian casualties. There is no point wasting valueable resources on unnecessary targets which will only achieve the opposite of what your actual goal.

I agree. I certainly never implied that the Russian Army would target civilians. Never thought of it either.
The point I was making is that every civilian life lost (even unintentionally) is a nightmare later on because of the reasons which I mentioned in the previous post.

Well .... I want them Abkhaz and Ossetians to join us again. We simply belong togheter like in the past centuries and despite the terrible genocide the Abkhazians togheter with their Chechen allies and who else not was involved, carried out in 1992, especialy 1993 ... the majority of Georgians are ready to forgive them, forget the past and only look ahead. We do not only remember 1993 but also how Georgians and Abkhazians fought side by side against the invading bolsheviks and in the struggle to retake Sochi. We were all one for more than a millenia and fought togheter over the centuries. It is just so sad that politicaly motivated division all lead to this in just a matter of "minutes" . Yes it is everything geostrategicaly and politicaly motivated like it allways was. Especialy the implication that there is a "South Ossetia" that originaly might actualy belong to Russian "North Ossetia". At least I see it that way. The people living there were originaly called Alans for centuries and yes Alania was originaly greater in size, stretching from Georgian "South Ossetia" ( originaly the region of "Shida Kartli" ) to Russian "North Ossetia". It was one Alania back then, compromising those territories which are nowdays split in two. Having said that, we do also see and heavily regret the mistakes we have done that contributed to those catastrophies. Before Saakashvili there was a beacon of hope to some day somehow restore the nation as whole. What he did was national treatury. Before he became president, there at least were some progressive events like when Putin allowed tens of thousands of Georgian Abkhazia IDPs ( from a total of 250.000 ) to return to their homes. There was mutual cooperation and border patrols. All that ended once again with a political tool that put the nation once again in total misery in less than 5 days. When we could say that the Abkhazia War was a disaster because Russia stood behind it all the way, we can't say that the Russians are responsible for what happened in South Ossetia in 2008 this time. It's solely our fault and we have to accept the temporary results and somehow try to fix this all. It can only happen by attracting the Abkhaz and Ossetians into joining us again. There is no other way.

You might have a problem:

http://lenta.ru/news/2014/06/23/osetia/

They are going to hold a referendum to join Russia or not.

I don't have much strong feelings one way or another, but Russia and Georgia need to put the past behind them and move on. Senseless to be neighbors and enemies, Especially with so many people living across the state borders of both nations.

The only way to put the past behind is admitting that Georgia under Sackarschwilli started the war and prosecuting this bastard for genocide, which it was.

Werewolf wrote:The only way to put the past behind is admitting that Georgia under Sackarschwilli started the war and prosecuting this bastard for genocide, which it was.

Collateral damage is not genocide.

Saaka is basically non-grata in Georgia anyways, asking for prosecution is just silly.

TR1 wrote:You might have a problem:

They are going to hold a referendum to join Russia or not.

I don't have much strong feelings one way or another, but Russia and Georgia need to put the past behind them and move on. Senseless to be neighbors and enemies, Especially with so many people living across the state borders of both nations.

Yes I know this. Hopefully it won't happen. I still think in the end Russia won't agree on that. Apart of not wanting it themselves they got to expect a massive deteriorate of the allready strained political relations between our two countries. It certainly isn't in the interest of any side.

Werewolf wrote:The only way to put the past behind is admitting that Georgia under Sackarschwilli started the war and prosecuting this bastard for genocide, which it was.

There was no "genocide" nor an attempt of a genocide, not even remotely. It's pretty offensive to claim that. What happened was an unnecessary large scale military operation to regain total control of Tskhinvali and the entire region. It went completly out of proportions wich resulted in collateral damage on both sides. Given the official figures from Russian, Ossetian and Georgian side the civilian death toll in Georgia proper was even higher. Half of the killed Ossetians who were not conscripts, were probably volunteers. I agree that bombarding a city is a crime in general. But military all over the world does it. Remember Grozny, Baghdad, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine etc ? why don't you condemn that ? and if we're at condemning crimes. Why not start with the mass exodus and brutal murder of thousands of people in 1993 then ? maybe Abkhazians should slowly begin to admit it was a crime instead of giving people who participated in it, medals and awards .... that would at least give us less headaches and emotions.

It was a pretty clever move from their side though to evacuate the city before the GAF rolled in. Not only because people were saved, but also to make it look like the GAF was indeed carrying out a genocidal mission which is just some basic propaganda to justify military response in addition to the killed MC troops .... and no, I'm not saying it to justify what Saakashvili did or what crimes happened. Crimes happened on both sides and in fact Georgian police units probably did some shit to some people they took prisoners, as well as Ossetians destroying Georgian villages, kidnapping and murdering people. So please, don't be one sided. The war itself was a crime allready.

TR1 wrote:

Werewolf wrote:The only way to put the past behind is admitting that Georgia under Sackarschwilli started the war and prosecuting this bastard for genocide, which it was.

Collateral damage is not genocide.

Saaka is basically non-grata in Georgia anyways, asking for prosecution is just silly.  

Yes you are truely americanized silly guy.

So this is collateral damage?

Driving through South Ossetian cities randomly shooting in civilian houses and cars?





How many US/Georgian lies have been told and till this day believed and spread, blaming russia for civilian deaths while it was Georgian Grads that destroyed villages and civilian buildings in cities, before any russian had fired a shot?

Collateral damage means NON-intentional!

Genocide means an attempt to wipe out or reducing drastically the population of a group. US played this retarded Sackarschwilli for an idiot he is, told him he could get into NATO, but one requirement for joinging NATO is it shall not have dispute with any boardering countries,regions so they tried to "cleanse" this region, attacked russian troops intentionally, too.

It was a genocide by true meaning.

If you continue with your americanized bias than better don't respond at all.

So you gonna trial Putin next right?

They shelled, deliberately, consistently, and without proper evacuation, Chechen villages.

GENOCIDE!

Calling me Americanized is just silly. You are the one blaming the US for Chechnya in general, talk about wackjob history!

TR1 wrote:So you gonna trial Putin next right?

They shelled, deliberately, consistently, and without proper evacuation, Chechen villages.

GENOCIDE!

Calling me Americanized is just silly. You are the one blaming the US for Chechnya in general, talk about wackjob history!

Did russian troops drove in Chechen cities on tanks firing on civilians laughing into camera without recieving a single bullet? Obviously not.

In South Ossetia and in Abchasia not a single terrorist,soldier or whatever has started killing Georgians, Georgian forces under Sackarschwili who was the Chief in Command and therefor highest responsibl for actions of military.

Yes you are americanized because you have double standards and are ignoring and it seems more and more that you are calumniating obvious involvement of USA in those actions, same as in Chechnia maybe even in Ukraine.


Yes civilians were killed in Chechnia by russian forces, but was it intentional, that is the question, can you proof that please, that GRAD systemes flattened villages of civilians for fun? Chechnia had actual armed terrorists in there, South Ossetia did not had, so why is the military shooting randomly at villages,cities and with tanks at buildings cars and laughing into camera?

TheGeorgian wrote:We simply belong togheter like in the past centuries ...

Is that the disinformation they are teaching people now?

There was no Georgia in "the past centuries".

No, Russian troops just executed people in filtration camps, filled mass graves with often non-fighters, and generally turned Grozny into Stalingrad 2.0

Your whitewashing is disgusting.

SO militia and Georgians shot at each other from time to time for years. From the Georgian perspective, they were armed rebels. Believe it or not there is a whole world out there, not just Russia's perspective.

And btw, what civilians are being shot in that vid? They are shooting around a deserted area. No proof they killed anyone in that clip. Does it make the Georgians look bad? Sure. Genocide? Nonsense.

TR1 wrote:No, Russian troops just executed people in filtration camps, filled mass graves with often non-fighters, and generally turned Grozny into Stalingrad 2.0

Your whitewashing is disgusting.

SO militia and Georgians shot at each other from time to time for years. From the Georgian perspective, they were armed rebels. Believe it or not there is a whole world out there, not just Russia's perspective.

And btw, what civilians are being shot in that vid? They are shooting around a deserted area. No proof they killed anyone in that clip. Does it make the Georgians look bad? Sure. Genocide? Nonsense.

And your sources for this claims, of mass genocide of civilians purposely? Maybe CNN and BBC who purposley lied about Chechnia, Georgia,Ukraine,Syria blaming always Russia did that and did this.

Show your source.


You are the only one here whitewashing. And yes families have been executed in that village, you clearly have not watched the videos.

From min 7:00

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%A7%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%B5_%D0%B2_%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5_%D0%92%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9%D0%BD%D1%8B

Enjoy your reading.
Though I am sure every incident of Russian forces potentially committing crimes is "teh American propaganda", but some Georgians shooting up streets= genocide.