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"even though some 25m Russians were left stranded in countries no longer their own."
Implied: Before that time, Estonia, Latvia, etc. *were* the Russians' own. This comports perfectly with most Russian political ideology from previous decades, and Putin's own. Even the lexicon's altered a bit to make it more emotionally tinged and obvious: Soviet soldiers called their own people "svoi" ('own', showing fairly neutral possession, not much emotional coloring), but Putin calls his people "nashi" ("ours", showing that the possessor is important and adding emotional color). "Stranded" is also a lovely term; it implies they were just accidentally there. Some were; some weren't; it was a civilian occupation, and the locals knew it. The Russians often knew it, and despised the locals.
Ain't pretensions to ethnic superiority grand? Esp. coming from a Slavophile--just as their predecessor Slavophiles had no trouble killing and enslaving Slavs in the name of Slavic brotherhood. (Gotta feel it for the Balts and Caucasians, though.) Ick.
I also note that the dead Georgian peacekeepers--courtesy of artillery fire from weapons the Ossetians didn't have in June, and which must have come from Russia--were the most likely cause for the Georgian artillery movements. They happened a day or two before the first *real* fatalities, which, of course, had to be Russian. Dead Georgians to Russians are like dead blacks to the Klan. White man kills black man, so what? Hush it up, it doesn't matter. Black man's brother kills white in revenge, in self-defense, for any reason, really, *now* it's murder and something needs to be done to "teach them to show respect" (which is precisely what Putin said about the Georgians).
One also notes that the Ossetians made a raid into Georgian-held territory and arrested--and humiliated--some Georgian peacekeepers prior to the first dead non-humans, i.e., Georgians.
In both cases, the Russian peacekeepers did nothing. Arguably, in the case of the 120 mm artillery, banned under the terms of the early '90s ceasefire and constituting an act of war, the Russians provided it, by accident or otherwise. "By accident" would be acceptable; not confiscating it implies approval.
In fact, all the blather from the Georgian side talks about attempts on 8/6 and 8/7 by Saakashvili to talk to Medvedev and Putin preceded Medvid's first public statement. But he couldn't get through. Saakashvili's also been reported to have expressed frustration with European and American politicians over the lack of communication, reported on 8/10 or 8/11. A meeting the day before hostilities *really* broke out, to work out a ceasefire, wasn't attended by the Russians and Ossetians; they said they had a flat tire, and so couldn't make it, or be bothered to call.
But now Medvid says he was burning up the phone lines, a new claim that not only denies, but completely ignores, what's been reported in various places from various sources over the last two weeks. Do I feel my long-term memories being rewritten? Mmm... da.
Russia denies a bombardment took place prior to Georgian's unmerited, unjust, unprovoked attack. Georgia says two bombardments took place, one of which killed people. UN observers backed up the claim concerning the first bombardment, and said they didn't hear or see the second. Russia's not wrong, just dishonest, acting as though denial of one bombardment implies denying the possibility of any others. The best lie is a half-truth that leads the listener to infer the lie. Moreover, people that don't pay attention are a majority, and will find it fully plausible ... all the more so when it suits their convenience and biases.
There are three competing narratives. One is Russian MSM, by and large. Medvid's, in short. Some of it's bled into the Western media. Then there's the Georgian narrative. Some of it's also made it into the Western media. Each has its stalwart adherents. Then there's a third narrative, one that bleeds through Russian blogs, HRC reports, UN observers' statements, and other sources; it's partly confirmed and partly confirms each of the first two narrative, and disagrees on some substantive and serious points.
The third narrative has falsified much of what Medvedev/Russian MSM and a middling amount of what Saakashvili have said. Accepting falsehoods when you don't know better is understandable; accepting it when you know better is just buying propaganda and misinformation.
Here's an example, with a bit of speculation. The Russian view of how it started: Georgia attacked in an unprovoked action. Then Russian troops started moving. Russian media are equivocal as to the timing--they won't say a time. Georgian view: The Russian troops were en route before they launched a Grad attack; they were provoked, and the Russians were monitoring them, ready to pounce. But the Russians were clearly en route no later than 15-20 minutes after the first Georgian attack, and then they were through the tunnel--or maybe they started moving before the first Georgian attack. They don't say how they can know this. This all seems suspicious--the 58th at their vehicles near midnight, suited up, armed, and en route in 15 minutes. But a blogger that went through a day later said the Russians lost lots of equipment on the Georgian side, it went over the ledge, and there were signs of fighting. Problem is Tskhinvali's miles from there, and nobody said Georgian troops got that far. So there was no fighting. Couldn't the equipment, tanks and APCs, stay on the road? The blogger was incredulous, his first impressions through the Roki tunnel. I thought it odd, but didn't want to discount the firsthand report.
There's a new report I saw today: The Georgians had a two-pronged attack (which, oddly, is what the early reports tried to say--the butt-obvious thing would be to take out the Roki tunnel; such reports died, since the Russians obviously got through). We know about the "massive" 800-man Georgian force and the "crushing" single Grad battery used against Tskhinvali. But the new claim, official for neither side, is that Georgian troops went in to sabotage the road near the tunnel so as to block Russian armor movement, and ran into Russians who were on the move pre-emptively early. The bridge they were after was damaged, but the Georgians were crushed by overwhelming numbers of Russian troops. The armor had trouble getting through; it slowed them down while they fixed the damage. If true, the Georgians would know the Russian's timing, and the Russians wouldn't want to say because it means they were on the move *before* the first strike force did anything. The Russians wouldn't want to admit having been thwarted, since their advantage is in overwhelming unstoppable force. Saakashvili can't claim the action, since it was a rout, and because it's contrary to what he said it was for--not to conduct a military operation against the Russians per se, but for the "restoration of constitutional order", political, operation. As a military operation, it's a complete fiasco; as a nationalistic action, it's plausibly supportable, in theory.
Speculation, of course, but it means both sides were lying, one more seriously than the other (in fact, the more serious errors of fact are on the side that is usually shown to have the more serious errors of fact). The speculation's rooted in two unconnected reports, one from a Russian embedded blogger from 8/8 and the other from an American in Georgia on 8/26. It makes sense of a series of otherwise unaccounted for and disparate facts in a coherent manner.
It ignores Medvid entirely. Then again, there's no reason not to, apart from being scared.
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