Two Sukhoi fighter-bombers with Russian Air Force markings, flying together from the direction of North Ossetia, intruded by some 80 kilometers into Georgia’s air space on August 6. At 18:20 local time, one of these planes dived from 3,000 meters altitude and dropped a missile near the town of Gori, some 50-60 kilometers from Tbilisi, on a village within the so-called “Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone.”
The powerful missile with 78 kilograms of TNT landed in a field, failed to explode, and was defused by Georgian military sappers. Georgian Defense Ministry radars and those of Georgia’s civil aviation authority recorded the flight itinerary from and back to Russia’s North Ossetia. The village, Tsitelubani, is within sight of Russian and South Ossetian “peacekeeping” troops’ posts.
This incident follows in the footsteps of the Russian air raid on the Georgian-controlled Kodori Gorge in upper Abkhazia on March 11 (see EDM, March 19, 20). The United Nations led the investigation into that incident, dragged its feet as long as it could, and published the results in July, whitewashing Russia, despite the clear evidence of Russian culpability. The fresh whitewash almost certainly emboldened the Russian military into recidivism, further probing and testing Georgian and Western reactions.
If the Europeans don't stand up and state, "here, but no further" wrt the Georgian-Russian conflict (with teeth) this will end up making Russia bolder and bolder. If Belarus' government is undermined by the Russian gas conflict, do you really think that they're going to let it have an Orange REvolution on the off chance it might be successful and be steered into the EU? *snork* And then whither Ukraine? And then? Russia needs to be told, by Europe, that they need to knock it off and Europe needs to hold that line. Otherwise, for the next twenty years, Russia is going to be a serious PITA for Europeans: consider they're coveting the Med too. At least navally.
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