Ratbert wrote:top-secret satellite technology — the pride of NATO generals. ... According to Russian officials, they didn't expect that a key unit of Georgian intelligence trained by top NATO specialists would drive directly into their hands. ....
Иногда вот так подумаешь - может, это выгодно для России, если Грузия и Украина вступят в НАТО? Они ж всю эту несчастную НАТУ развалят за пару лет....
"При желании можно выклянчить все: деньги, славу, власть. Но только не Родину, господа. Особенно такую, как моя."
WSJ съездило в Осетию - репортаж такой у них получился
A Visit to a South Ossetian Village Illuminates Georgians' Views
By ANDREW OSBORN
August 23, 2008; Page A6
KHETAGUROVO, Georgia -- Grigory Mamiyev says his father, Pyotr, was standing in front of his two-story house in this tiny Ossetian village when shrapnel from a Georgian shell tore part of his head off, killing him instantly. His father's blood still stains the sidewalk outside.
Locals say an elderly woman named Tamara Mamiyeva (no relation) was burnt to death when another Georgian shell ignited a fierce fire in her home, opposite the Mamiyevs'. The squat brick house where she lived is now a blackened husk.
On the next street in this sleepy village of 150 houses, Eteri Dzhioyeva mourns her husband, Aslan. She says shrapnel hit the pensioner in the back of the head, killing him about a yard from the cellar he was trying to reach.
As the world wonders why Russia and the tiny pro-Russian statelet of South Ossetia are so sure the fierce blows Moscow dealt Georgia this month were proportionate, the devastation wrought in this village offers important clues. A visit to Khetagurovo, just five miles from Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, turned up evidence of indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets and accounts of the kidnapping of noncombatants. Some of the survivors' stories were independently confirmed; others couldn't be.
"We have a saying," says Mr. Mamiyev, standing amid the ruins of his home. "Build a home, plant a tree, and raise a son." Now, he says, there should be a new line: "And then the Georgians come along and turn everything into ash and cinders."
Locals say eight villagers were killed in a Georgian attack that began on Aug. 7 and triggered the massive response from Russia. That number could not be independently confirmed, though several freshly dug graves were found in Khetagurovo's cemetery, set in the grounds of a handsome 12th-century stone church. The churchyard is littered with Georgian soldiers' empty ration packs, Georgian cigarette packets and shell casings.
Georgian officials have denied targeting civilians and taking hostages.
South Ossetia, an enclave in the shadow of the Caucasus mountains about the size of Rhode Island, is a patchwork of ethnic Georgian and Ossetian villages. The war was the latest bloody chapter in years of ethnic conflict between the groups. After Russian troops drove Georgian forces from the area early this month, vengeful Ossetians burned Georgian villages like Avnevi to the ground. Five ethnic Georgian villages to the north of Tskhinvali have also been systematically bull-dozed, burnt and looted.
Khetagurovo's dusty, unmade streets are filled with the detritus of war. Villagers' kitchen gardens and roads are pocked with large craters where shells fell, often close together.
Standing outside his windowless shell-damaged house, Gamlet Gigolayev, a member of the local militia, says the attack began with small-arms fire and was followed by sustained shelling with Grad missiles. Then, he said, came the tanks.
"You could only hide," Mr. Gigolayev says.
As his mother picks up pieces of roof covering and shrapnel from the front porch behind him, Mr. Gigolayev wonders where he is going to live. "This is it, there is nowhere else," he says. "I don't know how, but we have to fix this place up before the winter sets in."
The village is still dangerous, as it is littered with unexploded and abandoned ordnance. In the back yard of a house nearby, locals force open a crate of Georgian hand grenades with a crow bar before filling their pockets.
South Ossetia's prosecutor, Taimuraz Khugayev, singles out Khetagurovo as a place where Georgian soldiers committed "war crimes." He says it was occupied on Aug. 7 and 8. "When we liberated the village, we found a car filled with spades abandoned in a field," he says. "We assume the Georgians wanted to organize a mass burial."
Georgian soldiers took civilian hostages from the village, residents say. Mr. Mamiyev says he was one of six hostages taken to the Georgian town of Gori and then on to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. He says he was released unharmed.
Sitting in her yard drinking coffee with friends, Rita Tegkayeva, another resident who says she was taken hostage, says she is still waiting for news of her husband, Oleg, a colonel in the statelet's traffic police. Locals say they are holding three Georgian soldiers to barter.
In about a dozen interviews, locals say the attack has strengthened their resolve to become part of Russia. "How many years have we been suffering?" says Ms. Dzhioyeva, who lost her husband. She says Russia is South Ossetia's only chance of a peaceful future. "Who else will fight the Georgians?" she says.
http://www.kp.ru/daily/24146/363694/ Ванга: Грузия? Не вижу такой страны в будущем...
Ванга умерла в августе, 12 лет назад. Но вспоминают ее постоянно, и по самым разным поводам.Интернет содрогнулся, вспомнив знаменитую прорицательницу
Владимир ЛАГОВСКИЙ — 15.08.2008
Да, действительно оригинальненько, вбрасывать нам тут новость недельной давности. Тем более, что эту новость никто раскручивать не стал, написали - и тут же забыли.
"При желании можно выклянчить все: деньги, славу, власть. Но только не Родину, господа. Особенно такую, как моя."
A soldier in one of the Russian tanks approaching the Russian border hold their national flag as they drive through the northern part of breakaway South Ossetia August 24, 2008. A U.S. navy warship arrived in Georgia's main Black Sea port of Batumi on Sunday with humanitarian aid as Russia ignored Western demands to remove its remaining troops from Georgia's heartland. REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
"У нас есть домашние заготовки - и мы знаем, что мы будем делать." В. В. Путин
Igor'1968 wrote:А это не та таймс, которая Путинские 42 миллиарда до сих пор ищет?
Совсем недавно их было всего 40! Он шо, успел ещё 2 миллиарда под шумок заныкать?
У Путина - 42! У Буша на один меньше - 18+23! У Путина еще дом стадвадцатитрехэтажный, весь в швейцарской скале вырубленный...
А бункер-то, бункер? Тоже свой есть?
Neo sees a black cat walk by twice.
Gambling is not permitted because the eighth and tenth commandments forbid covetousness, and lazy wasting of money.
http://ep-news.livejournal.com/45700.ht ... ine#cutid1 В 23:47 7 августа начался интенсивный обстрел Цхинвала. Я смотрел на часы, когда метрах в 300 от нашей группы упали первые залпы установки ГРАД. Естественно мы все оказались на земле. За полчаса до начала боевых действий почти все журналисты, которые находились в городе, приехали в объединенный штаб смешанных сил по поддержанию мира, чтобы записать заявление командующего ССПМ Марата Кулахметова. Генерал должен был рассказать о ходе переговоров между Поповым и Якобошвили. Но Кулахметов сделал совсем другое заявление. Сразу после первых залпов мы все побежали в кабинет командующего, и он сказал, очень спокойно сказал, что только разговаривал с грузинской стороной, требовал объяснений, и те, мол, заявили - это война. Стоит отметить, что за сутки до начала боевых действий старший воинский начальник от грузинской стороны под каким-то предлогом покинул расположение штаба. Сотрудники миссии ОБСЕ также за несколько часов до начала обстрела сели в машины и уехали в сторону Гори. Они даже личные вещи не взяли, собирались в спешке. Но тогда на это никто не обратил внимания.
A convoy of Russian troops makes its way through the Caucasus Mountains toward the armed conflict between Georgian troops and separatist South Ossetian troops, in the South Ossetian village of Dzhaba on August 9, 2008. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a "state of war" as his troops battled it out with Russian forces over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. (Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP)
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
"У нас есть домашние заготовки - и мы знаем, что мы будем делать." В. В. Путин
А что непонятно? Батонэ Мишо сказали "фас" из вашингтонского обкома, что ему оставалось сделать? Выбор не велик: или выполнить команду умильно виляя при этом хвостиком или отправиться мести улицы Тбилиси и это в лучшем для него случае...
MAF wrote:А что непонятно? Батонэ Мишо сказали "фас" из вашингтонского обкома, что ему оставалось сделать? Выбор не велик: или выполнить команду умильно виляя при этом хвостиком или отправиться мести улицы Тбилиси и это в лучшем для него случае...
Можно подумать Вашингтон не знал, что там Саакашвили делает. Ведь даже если предположить что это так, достаточно ведь телефонную трубку поднять и спросить - Миша, ты что там делаешь?
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.