[QUOTE]
[IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/68338000/jpg/_68338959_russiantankafp.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Russian tanks poured into Georgia during the 2008 conflict, part of the force that dealt a devastating blow to Georgia's ambition to re-establish control over breakaway territory[/I]
Five years after losing a war with Russia, Georgia now wants to make friends with the Kremlin. But Georgia is also keen to integrate fully with the West. Can it do both, asks the BBC's Georgia correspondent Damien McGuiness.
When Russian forces swept through the Georgian village of Ergneti, the house of 74-year-old Ivane Dvalishvili was burned down, his livestock stolen and irrigation systems destroyed.
Half a decade later, his home and his life are still in ruins, a visible scar of Georgia's war with Russia.
"We used to grow peaches and fruit here," he said. "But since the war we've not been able to grow anything."
On 8 August, Georgia will mark the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the war. It lasted only five days but it was disastrous for Georgia.
The war began with an operation by Georgia, which hoped to seize territory that had been outside its control since the early 1990s.
Initially successful, it did not take Russia's army long to retake the area and push deeper into Georgian territory, stopping just short of the capital, Tbilisi.
Nearly 1,000 people were killed while tens of thousands of Georgians living in the disputed areas were forced out of their homes.
Russian troops are now stationed in 20% of the country's territory.
Moscow and Tbilisi promptly broke off diplomatic relations with each other while the Russian and Georgian leaders indulged in undiplomatic insults.
Vladimir Putin has famously said he wanted to hang up Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili by the genitals.
There are also signs that visa restrictions for Georgians travelling to Russia could be eased. And on 11 June, President Putin said that he supports restoring "full-scale relations".
Despite the scars left behind by the war, it is a policy which has broad support among Georgian voters.
"We love Russia," a Georgian friend Maka once told me, when I asked if there were any hard feelings about the war. "We just don't like Putin very much."
Georgia has had close links to Russia for centuries.
Georgians admire Russian literature and culture. They have traditionally viewed Christian Russia as the route to Europe as well as a bulwark against encroaching Muslim empires to the South, in modern day Iran and Turkey.
During the 70 years as part of the Soviet Union, sunny Georgia had the sort of reputation that Italy has in northern Europe: charmingly chaotic, with great food, wine and weather.
So the break between the two countries was traumatic, at least for Georgia.
Ask any Georgian where they were on the day their tiny country suddenly found itself at war with its huge and powerful neighbour, and they will be able to tell you.
It was a terrifying moment for an impoverished former Soviet republic of fewer than five million people.
It was an equally terrifying prospect for the West.
The US-backed 2003 Rose Revolution led by Mr Saakashvili had transformed Georgia from a corrupt, Soviet-style, failed state into a democratic Western project near the heart of the former Soviet Union.
In the process, the country also become a key Nato ally, so there were real worries that Georgia would now drag Europe and the US into full-scale war with Russia.
The fighting broke out over the small mountainous landlocked territory of South Ossetia, a region backed by Russia, that broke away in the early 1990s.
In Tbilisi however, and for most of the international community, it is viewed as Georgian territory.
An independent EU report accused Russia of ethnic cleansing in the area and violating international law. But it also blamed Mr Saakashvili's government for firing the first shots.
President Saakashvili is adamant that Georgia acted in self-defence, pointing to the large build-up of Russian troops on the other side of the border earlier that summer.
Now that President Saakshvili's party is no longer in power, a bitter row is growing in Tbilisi about the conduct of the war. In part, it is fuelled by political rivalry.
In May, Mr Saakashvili's rival, the billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is now Georgia's prime minister, launched a fresh inquiry into the war.
The president has dismissed such criticisms as unpatriotic and playing into the hands of Russian propaganda, an accusation that fits the portrayal of Mr Ivanishvili as a Russian stooge.
The billionaire tycoon made his wealth in 1990s Moscow, making him suspect in some eyes. When he burst onto the political scene last year and announced his intention to run for prime minister, many accused him of being intent on destabilising Georgia.
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[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23010526[/url]
Really? 5 years already? Feels like much less.
This is the first time I've heard anything about the war for a while, good to know they're finally trying to heal the wounds from it although there is probably still bitterness amongst the people affected by it.
I seriously doubt the wounds have been healed but hopefully we won't see anymore conflicts between these two.
I remember when this first happened, and media was reporting how Georgia was the "invading" party, and once Russia stepped in the viewpoint suddenly shifted so Georgia was now defending the land it was invading the day before.
[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;41177594]I remember when this first happened, and media was reporting how Georgia was the "invading" party, and once Russia stepped in the viewpoint suddenly shifted so Georgia was now defending the land it was invading the day before.[/QUOTE]
Yeah you couldn't really trust what either side was saying.
[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;41177594]I remember when this first happened, and media was reporting how Georgia was the "invading" party, and once Russia stepped in the viewpoint suddenly shifted so Georgia was now defending the land it was invading the day before.[/QUOTE]Russia gives passports to people in said breakaway territories to justify intervention on the basis of Russian citizens being present.
Georgia has basically been mistreating the minority groups in those areas since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and [url=http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/pdfs/g/georgia/georgia.923/georgia923full.pdf]weren't at all kind[/url] during the war with South Ossetia. The Ossetians were most certainly not innocent of similar crimes, but it's not hard to see why they'd want to break away from Georgia.
The immediate short-term causes of the war generally point towards Georgia acting disproportionately to South Ossetian skirmishes, while Russian actions on the Abkhazia front and the invasion of Georgia proper being similarly disproportionate.
All in all, imo a war with a veritable tangled web of causes, blame and general ethnic tensions, but mercifully short.
what the christ it's been FIVE YEARS?
*eats tie*
One of the worst things about the 2008 war was that Georgians and Russians never were "enemy" nations (unlike e. g. the Israel/every-country-nearby case). There's a lot of common heritage, Daneliya's fimls being an example... or the fact there's a lot of Georgian restaurants in Moscow (and nobody tries to burn them down or something).
So it's really great to see that this war didn't fuck everything up permanently.
I was picturing the US state of Georgia, this is unexpected
My state is making up with Russia? Thank god. I didn't feel safe living in this country if my state had troubles with Russia.
When this happened I thought Russia invaded the US state "Georgia" because all the news channels said "RUSSIA INVADES GEORGIA" and I got scared.
I was pretty stupid back then.
[QUOTE=Iago;41179732]When this happened I thought Russia invaded the US state "Georgia" because all the news channels said "RUSSIA INVADES GEORGIA" and I got scared.
I was pretty stupid back then.[/QUOTE]
my grandmother woke me up crying
Its funny to think about it really. The Olympics were just starting and people had their mind on that, then we learned about this conflict. There was also a lot of talk about the troubles with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the general population really hadn't begun to notice the troubles with the economy yet. But think about it, the population was so much more care free then than they are now.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;41179857]Its funny to think about it really. The Olympics were just starting and people had their mind on that, then we learned about this conflict. There was also a lot of talk about the troubles with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the general population really hadn't begun to notice the troubles with the economy yet. But think about it, the population was so much more care free then than they are now.[/QUOTE]
Another thing which had a huge impact was how relatively short the conflict was. Georgia was aggressive and the RF came in, utterly curbstomped them, but intentionally didn't cause much damage. It wasn't a long protracted war with a long peacekeeping mission after.
Imagine if the US Iraq war ended with the initial invasion.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;41180411]Another thing which had a huge impact was how relatively short the conflict was. Georgia was aggressive and the RF came in, utterly curbstomped them, but intentionally didn't cause much damage. It wasn't a long protracted war with a long peacekeeping mission after.
Imagine if the US Iraq war ended with the initial invasion.[/QUOTE]
Sectarian reprisals against those aligned with the Husseini regime, Kurdish rebels breaking off in the north, and southern Iraq locked in a protracted battle with Baghdad over the new government like in '91.
Yeah I can imagine that.
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