Russia seeking regime change in Georgia

Reuters:

The United States suggested on Sunday that Russia was interested in "regime change" in Georgia after Moscow rejected Tbilisi's offer of a cease-fire in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili "must go," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Security Council.

Khalilzad then looked straight at Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and asked if Moscow was looking for "regime change."

"Is the goal of the Russian Federation to change the leadership of Georgia?" he said.

Churkin did not directly address the question but said there are leaders who "become an obstacle."

"Sometimes those leaders need to contemplate how useful they have become to their people," he told reporters later.

"Regime change is purely an American invention," he said. "We're all for democracy in Georgia."

...

They are looking for the Russian style of democracy where candidates who might beat theirs are excluded. That is also the Iranian and the Venezuelan model. It is pretend democracy similar to that under the Soviets.