Russia worried about an invasion from Georgia?

Guardian:

Russia accused Georgia yesterday of planning to invade the breakaway republic of Abkhazia and said it was sending more troops to the region.

Russia's foreign ministry said Georgia had amassed more than 1,500 troops in the mountainous Upper Kodori valley - a small but strategic enclave inside the separatist territory but controlled by Georgian forces. It was "possible to conclude that Georgia is preparing a base for a military operation against Abkhazia", the Russian foreign ministry said. Russia was responding by sending more peacekeeping troops to prevent a Georgian attack, it added.

Yesterday's move escalates the crisis between the two ex-Soviet neighbours over Abkhazia. Abkhazia broke away from Georgia following a civil war in 1992-3. Georgia wants the territory back. Russia's president Vladimir Putin recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another breakaway region of Georgia, as legal entities this month - prompting Tbilisi to accuse Russia of "de facto annexation".

Yesterday Georgia denied that it was planning to recapture Abkhazia, where Russia has around 1,000 peacekeeping troops under a 1994 accord. "This information is false. It is aimed at exacerbating tensions in the conflict area," the Georgian interior ministry spokesman, Shota Utiashvili, told Interfax.

He denied Russian defence ministry reports that Georgia had moved heavy artillery into the Kodori gorge and said there were only police posts there. Last week Georgia accused Russia of shooting down an unmanned drone over Abkhazia. Russia denied the claim.

...

It does not sound like much of an invasion force. Even with the poor state of the former Red Army, I think the Russians could easily overwhelm this Georgian force. It is time for Georgia to write off this territory. It does not appear worth fighting for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more