– Putin vows to protect Abkhazia’s security and independence
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Abkhazia
Russian S-300s in Abkhazia Block Possible Israeli Air Route to Iran
DEBKAfile is a Mossad asset.
See also: Russia: Iran’s nuclear plant to get fuel next week (AP)
US and Israeli military sources told debkafile Thursday, Aug. 12, that a threat from Georgia was not the reason why Russian posted advanced S-300 interceptor batteries Russia in Abkhazia and air defense weapons in South Ossetia on the northern shore of the Black Sea – as Moscow officially maintained, but rather possible moves by the US and/or Israel against Iran and its nuclear facilities.
Georgia’s armed forces do not run to the sophisticated warplanes, missiles or drones that would warrant establishing the high-powered S-300 interceptors for defending the breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.Ordinary air defense batteries would do for deterrence.
Therefore, US military sources believe Moscow placed the sophisticated batteries on the Black Sea shore more as a counterweight for the US Sixth Fleet warships present in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the two big American bases close to the latter waterway – the Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base near Constanta, Romania, and the Bezmer Air Base used by the US Air Force just 50 kilometers from the southern shore of the Black Sea.
Their location gives the US Air Force the freedom to operate over both the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Our military sources disclose that attention was drawn in Moscow and Tehran to the exercises the Israeli Air Force has been conducting from the two American bases to simulate strikes against Iran’s concealed nuclear sites.
They noticed in particular the Israeli Yasur CH-53 helicopter which crashed in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania on July 26, killing six Israeli airman and a Romanian flight captain. It was obvious to Russian and Iranian observers from the way the CH-53 crashed and the veil of secrecy clamped down by Israeli authorities that it had been engaged in practicing touch-and-go attacks on nuclear sites which the Iranians have holed up in tunnels burrowed in the sides of lofty mountain precipices.
Read moreRussian S-300s in Abkhazia Block Possible Israeli Air Route to Iran
Moscow Deploys S-300 Anti Aircraft Missile Defense System In Abkhazia
Notice that this is a DEFENSE system, so why should this be a ‘provocative move’?
It has been proven that Georgia has been the aggressor and started the war and not Russia.
Mikhail Saakashvili himself admitted that Georgia started it.
Provocative move in disputed territory draws angry response from Georgia two years after its war with Russia
S-300 missile defense system
Russia said today that it had deployed air defence missiles in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, sending a defiant signal to Tbilisi and the west two years after a war with Georgia.
The formidable S-300 missile system bolstered Moscow’s military presence in the disputed territory and drew an angry response from Georgia. General Alexander Zelin, the commander of Russia’s air force, said other air defences had been deployed in Georgia’s other Russian-backed rebel region, South Ossetia.
“The task of these air defences is … to avert violations of their state borders in the air…”
Read moreMoscow Deploys S-300 Anti Aircraft Missile Defense System In Abkhazia
Saakashvili admitted that Georgia began military operations in South Ossestia
From the article:
“Mr Saakashvili admitted yesterday that Georgia began military operations in South Ossestia but insisted that it was in response to Russian provocation.”
Related info:
– Vladimir Putin ‘wanted to hang Georgian President Saakashvili by the balls’.
Source: The Times
Iron Lady Nino Burjanadze finds the steel to threaten her struggling ally
She styles her hair like Margaret Thatcher and counts the Iron Lady among her political idols. Now the female face of Georgia’s pro-Western Rose Revolution is challenging her former ally Mikhail Saakashvili.
Nino Burjanadze is emerging as the key threat to President Saakashvili over the disastrous handling of the war for South Ossetia. Protest was muted while the Russian Army occupied Georgia but its withdrawal is stirring opposition demands for him to go.
Read moreSaakashvili admitted that Georgia began military operations in South Ossestia
Belarus President Seeks to Deploy Russia Missiles
![[Belarus]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AT976_BELARU_D_20081113181340.jpg)
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, left, who met Oct. 26 near Moscow with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, says that Belarus would like to deploy missiles even if it doesn’t reach an agreement with Moscow.
MINSK, Belarus — President Alexander Lukashenko is in talks with Moscow about placing in Belarus advanced Iskander missiles that could hit targets deep inside Europe.
The talks raise the ante in the debate over a U.S. plan to deploy missile defense in Europe. They also complicate Western hopes for warmer ties with Belarus, which some in the U.S. and Europe hope could help to counterbalance an increasingly hostile Kremlin.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lukashenko said that he would like to see closer relations with the West but that he sympathizes with Russia on two flashpoints that have rocked relations — the conflict in Georgia and U.S. plans to place antimissile systems in Europe to counter a potential threat from Iran.
Mr. Lukashenko said he “absolutely supports” Russia’s plans to place Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad that would target the U.S. missile system. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave in Europe that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and missiles there could reach the proposed U.S. missile sites in Poland.
Mr. Lukashenko said Russia also had proposed putting Iskander missiles in Belarus, which is situated between Russia and Poland. And if a deal on the issue isn’t reached, Belarus itself would like to deploy the missiles, he said.
“Even if Russia does not offer these promising missiles, we will purchase them ourselves,” said Mr. Lukashenko, who said the technology for the Iskander optics and fire-control systems comes from Belarus. “Right now we do not have the funds, but it is part of our plans — I am giving away a secret here — to have such weapons.”
Russia Says Deadly Ossetia Blast Aimed to Undermine Cease-Fire
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — The Russian Defense Ministry said an explosion in separatist South Ossetia that killed seven Russian military personnel, including a senior officer, was intended to break a cease-fire with Georgia.
The ministry “regards this event as a carefully planned terrorist attack aimed at breaking off the fulfillment of all sides’ obligations under the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan,” according to a statement posted on its Web site late yesterday. South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity blamed Georgia for the blast.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, brokered the cease-fire that ended a five-day war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia in August. On Sept. 8, Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on a timetable for the withdrawal of Russian troops from buffer zones that extend into Georgia from South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.
Read moreRussia Says Deadly Ossetia Blast Aimed to Undermine Cease-Fire
Ex-Minister: Saakashvili Planned South Ossetia Invasion
PARIS (Reuters) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had long planned a military strike to seize back the breakaway region of South Ossetia but executed it poorly, making it easy for Russia to retaliate, Saakashvili’s former defence minister said.
Irakly Okruashvili, Georgia’s leading political exile, said in a weekend interview in Paris that the United States was partly to blame for the war, having failed to check the ambitions of what he called a man with democratic failings.
Saakashvili’s days as president were now numbered, he said.
Read moreEx-Minister: Saakashvili Planned South Ossetia Invasion
Medvedev: Georgia attack is ‘Russia’s 9/11’
Mr Medvedev said he hoped lessons would be learned from August’s events
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia as Russia’s 9/11.
He said the world had learnt lessons from the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 and hoped the same would happen after events in the Caucasus.
Reports say Russian troops are showing signs of preparing to pull back from inside Georgia.
Russia accuses West of provocation in Georgia
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the United States on Saturday of provoking Moscow by using warships to deliver relief aid to its ally Georgia, with which Russia fought a brief war last month.
“I wonder how they would feel if we now dispatched humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean, suffering from a hurricane, using our navy,” Medvedev said, adding that a whole U.S. fleet had been dispatched to deliver the aid.
Russia has also accused U.S. warships of rearming Tbilisi’s defeated army, a charge dismissed as “ridiculous” by Washington.
NATO in turn has rejected talk of a buildup of its warships in the Black Sea, saying their recent presence in the region was part of routine exercises.
Medvedev: Saakashvili is a political corpse
(BBC NEWS) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described his Georgian counterpart as a “political corpse”, saying Moscow does not recognise him as president.
“President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse,” he told Italy’s Rai television.
He said US support for Mr Saakashvili had helped provoke the crisis, which has seen Russian troops invade Georgia.
He said Russia did not fear isolation by Western countries that have condemned the Russian intervention.
Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force.
Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia has since recognised the independence of both regions, though no other country has.
South Ossetia will join ‘one united Russian state’
Russian soldiers adjust a Russian flag in the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali (AFP)
The Kremlin moved swiftly to tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway regions yesterday as South Ossetia announced that it would soon become part of Russia, which will open military bases in the province under an agreement to be signed on Tuesday.
Tarzan Kokoity, the province’s Deputy Speaker of parliament, announced that South Ossetia would be absorbed into Russia soon so that its people could live in “one united Russian state” with their ethnic kin in North Ossetia.
Belarus says to recognize Abkhazia, S. Ossetia by weekend
MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Belarusian ambassador to Moscow said Thursday that Belarus would in the next day or two recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“We are allies and this says it all,” Vasily Dolgolev said of Minsk’s relations with Moscow. He added that the relevant announcement would be made by President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday or Friday.
Russia recognized the two separatist Georgian republics’ sovereignty Tuesday, but despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s call for other countries to follow suit, none has.
Read moreBelarus says to recognize Abkhazia, S. Ossetia by weekend
Russia test-fires Topol missile, Georgia desperately cries for NATO membership
Russia’s strategic and space troops successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile Topol (RS12M).
The missile is designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defense systems. The launch was performed at 2:36 p.m. Moscow time from Plesetsk space port, RIA Novosti reports.
The missile successfully covered the distance of almost 6,000 kilometers and hit a hypothetical target on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Read moreRussia test-fires Topol missile, Georgia desperately cries for NATO membership
EU threatens sanctions against Russia
The French foreign affairs minister, Bernard Kouchner, said sanctions were ‘being considered’. Photograph: Gerard Cerles/AFP/Getty Images
European Union leaders will discuss sanctions against Russia ahead of an emergency summit meeting, the French foreign minister said today, as western leaders increased diplomatic pressure on Moscow.
When asked what measures the west could take against Russia in the crisis over Georgia, Bernard Kouchner told a press conference in Paris: “Sanctions are being considered.”
Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation
Russia has criticised the US for using naval ships to deliver aid to Georgia
A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea.
Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships. “Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,” he said.
Any attempt by countries in the West to isolate Russia would “definitely harm the economic interests of those states”, he said.
Read moreCold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation
Military help for Georgia is a ‘declaration of war’, says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West
Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a “declaration of war” by Russia.
The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.
And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – the ‘real architect’ of the Georgia conflict – and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday
The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia – where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state – came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.
“If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,” he stated.