Russian assualt on Gori in progress
Kurt Bassuener August 10th, 2008
AFP reports Russian forces are moving on Gori, well into central Georgia, with aerial attacks and artillery assaults. Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reports from Tblisi, having been in Gori earlier in the day, the word that the Russians were en route, and the mass exodus that followed.
In his interview on CNN, Russian UN Ambassador Vitali Churkin said that Russia was “take care of military infrastructure” in Georgia as part of its operation “in defense of the civilian population” of South Ossetia, and that tragically civilian casualties in Georgia are possible. Those are sure to mount should the Russians advance into a city that is rapidly becoming a ghost town.
So if Russia would follow the model of NATO (US) during the Kosovo War of 1999, would that mean that Russia would bomb in Georgia proper the airbases and other military installations, railway lines, and main bridges? Do you think that Russia will bomb the building of Georgian state radio-television or the Chinese Embassy as well?
Do you think the argument applies equally about military necessity of these targets as it did in Serbia?
Eric,
It appears that that’s exactly what Russia is doing - going after infrastructure targets in Georgia. I’m guessing they’ll try to avoid bombing embassies, just as I’m sure the US wanted to when bombing Serbia. (I’ve never been convinced that the Clinton administration intentionally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. It didn’t make sense. And I think we’ve all seen the U.S. intelligence community make dumb mistakes. The old-map explanation rings true to me.)
As to military necessity, it depends on what Russia’s goals are. The scale of Russia’s goals seems to be expanding rather quickly. Russia now says it wants to oust Saakashvili, so it looks like targeting within Georgia proper will be used to that end. I don’t think for a second that this is legitimate. This is a Russian power play in a way that the Kosovo intervention was not a western power play. That was humanitarian intervention, and in my eyes still legitimate at the time, though that legitimacy suffered after the fact by the botching of post-intervention peacekeeping and nation building.
Eric Witte
I have to agree with Eric W here. What was interesting last night was to watch Pavel Felgenhauer, the Russian military analyst, responded to a point made by Nina Kirtadze, a Georgian filmmaker. She’d been asked about the Kosovo precedent, and was told in Russia that if Kosovo became independent, then so would S Ossetia and Abkhazia. This view was one that was echoed in Russian officialdom and used in Serbia too. But Felgenhauer would have none of it - that this had nothing to do with Kosovo, and was all about Russia bringing Georgia to heel. That rings true to me.
What’s clear is that Russia is using all the rationales and terms used - in my view correctly - in 1999 to cloak its effort to cripple Georgia, after having been given a pretext by a rash move by Saakashvili. They’re singing from the same song sheet, with utterly different intent.
Russia’s targeting is also far out of whack with the ostensible grievance. We’ll see if they take Gori. Nobody’s really gotten them to own up to how their troop deployment in Abkhazia is linked to this, other than another front to hit at Georgia.