Talk:Russo-Georgian War/Archive 6

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Archive 1

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Archive 4

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The conflict IS OVER

I think you can modify the "Conflict ongoing" tag. [1]

Russia and Georgia have agreed a truce brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and have approved the principles of a full peace plan.

The only intelligent thing I heard about Russia and Georgia in about a week. It's over, and let's hope it stays that way. Qubix 82.208.174.72 (talk) 22:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is getting over

Russian Defence Ministry said it has no plans to attack Tbilisi. "We do not have and have never had any plans to advance on Tbilisi," cites Interfax agency a source in Russian command. Also Russian troops reportedly left Senaki military base. Russia says no plan to attack Tbilisi Российские войска покинули район города Сенаки

Seems to be getting over. Russia needs not Tbilisi, Georgia retreats from Tskhinvali.Garret Beaumain (talk) 20:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can say it's pretty tense here in Tbilisi among the few westerners that's still here. Some say Russian troops will attack Tbilisi soon. But I was downtown just some hours ago and couldn't notice anything special. The only thing that's unnormal is that the TV tower isn't lightened. Narking (talk) 20:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for report.Garret Beaumain (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are many rumours here now. One Georgian soldier said now in the evening that the Russians are already in Mshketa. But I doubt that. Narking (talk) 20:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your reports, Narking. Stay safe and God bless. I am praying for you personally in the range of my broader prayers. Christiangoth (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. So far it's calm here. Even though it seems like there are fewer and fewer lights in town. Just some minutes ago the TV tower went totally dark. TV works still though. The mobile net doesn't work since during the day. Narking (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Either just protection or the russians aint retreating... Based on whats going on, it might be botrh, but if the mobile networks down that cuts off information in that form.--Jakezing (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Every on-the-ground source I have seen (Reuters, Al J, "anonmyous US official" - can you say "military advisory coordinator" ;-) ) says that until the last night, no significant Russian forces had advanced significantly beyond the border, not to Gori, and certainly not to Mshketa. Seems they have taken the first large village/military base/police station (whatever's closest) on every trunk road leaving the areas of dispute, and that's that. Of course, new day, new game... but it might really be over.

It might get messy in Tbilisi though; as you can see some in the US believe that the whole governmental/military apparatus of Georgia has its back broken. Every report I have seen from N "mainland" Georgia speaks of a wholesale rout of Georgian forces, no C3I beyond platoon level if even that much (the Al J correspondent was pretty blunt about it being like "every tank crew on its own"). Stay tight, keep up the good work and CYA. Peace. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is over. Russian president Dimitri Medvedev ordered an end to the "campaign". [2]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.208.174.72 (talk) 13:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Largely over. A large Russian armored column (125 armored vehicles or so) is reportedly moving up to Kodori Valley (??? through mainland Georgia, from the front W of Gori??? with impunity???). Georgia reports on what seems to be intermittant artillery duels and perhaps the odd Russian airstrike in the Gori region. No reports of further fighting around Tzkhinvali after early Monday seem to be credible at face value.

So it's not over yet, but the front lines seem to be pretty clear. This user breathes a sigh of half-relief. I was fearing the Russians would go all the way, but their reported aims seem actually to be their true aims: to ensure that no Georgian troops are present in any numbers in Abkhazia, S Ossetia, and the next largish settlement on each and every major road leading to mainland Georgia from there. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And some other aims too , like challenging NATO a little bit, just to see what they can do. It seems not much...

Russian advances from Abkhazia

AP report from yahoo.com [[3]]

An advance and claimed withdrawal from Senaki.

"Russian armored personnel carriers moved into Senaki, a town 20 miles inland from Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, Lomaia said. Russian news agencies late Monday cited the Defense Ministry as saying the troops had left Senaki "after liquidating the danger," but did not give details."

Russians holding on to Zugdidi, and Abkhaz militias move into Kurga (in Georgia proper, not the disputed Kodori Gorge).

"Russian forces also moved into Zugdidi, near Abkhazia, and seized police stations, while their Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials."

"In Zugdidi, an AP reporter saw five or six Russian soldiers posted outside an Interior Ministry building."

Similar information from cnn.com [[4]]

Similar information about Senaki citing the Russian ministry of Defence from lemonde.fr [[5]]

"Des soldats russes sont entrés en territoire géorgien, près de Senaki, pour empêcher de nouvelles attaques géorgiennes contre l'Ossétie du Sud, annonce le ministère de la défense russe." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.44.195 (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Another French source (Le Figaro) giving the same information. [[6]]

"L'armée russe a occupé une base militaire près de la ville de Senaki «pour empêcher de nouvelles attaques géorgiennes en Ossétie du Sud». Dans la soirée, le ministère russe de la défense assure que les soldats se sont retirés de cette ville. Un haut responsable géorgien indique également que les forces russes occupent Gori, la plus grande ville géorgienne près de l'Ossétie du Sud, ce que le ministère russe de la défense dément. Des soldats russes sont également entrés dans la ville de Zougdidi, près de l'Abkhazie, selon un photographe de presse sur place."

The article states: "Also Russian troops reportedly left Senaki military base." but it never says that the Russian military entered Senaki.

It does. "The Georgian Minister of Defense announced that the Georgian military base in Senaki, outside Abkhazia, was captured by Russian armored vehicles, and the Associated Press indicated that a government official in Moscow confirmed the move."Garret Beaumain (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

In any case, they didn't need to enter the city proper. The Russian goal was, obviously, to disable or destroy the Senaki military air base located two to three kilometres south of the city. There was nothing stopping them from bypassing the urban area to achieve that goal. --MartinSojka (talk) 10:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe for a future 'Aftermath' section here or in the Reactions page

Russia Warns Baltics, Poland To Pay For Georgia Stance. 132.68.248.44 (talk) 20:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That might actually have a place in the International reaction to the 2008 South Ossetia war article. --StuffOfInterest (talk) 20:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with StuffofInterest. I'd like to note, however, that the sensationalist headline does not follow from the Russian quote. Russia did not warn that they "would" pay, but rather that those kinds of comments can be made without thought and then paid for for a long time afterwards. I would therefore suggest that the Russian quotation, rather than the article's interpretation, be used. Of course, we also can not make our own interpretation, as that would be original research. Christiangoth (talk) 20:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the doubt as to where to put it was expressed already in the heading. Intuitively it has to do with the international reactions, however: 1) this is not "international reaction" but a statement by a diplomat of a fighting side; 2) Comments by the warring factions are at the moment kept at this page, e.g. accusations of Western media bias; 3) Such "reactions to reactions" do not fit anywhere in the current structure of the International reaction to the 2008 South Ossetia war page. Maybe changing the relations page structure is a preferable solution. As to the meaning of the quote, this is diplomacy language. The headline appears to summarize it pretty well in "normal language" and quoting that summary is not original research. 132.68.248.44 (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Casualties - switched to two sets of figures

As the conflict grows older, the difference in losses reported by one side and those acknowledged by the other seems to grow. This is a phenomenon common in warfare; usually the truth lies somewhere in between.

In order to clearly distinguish between figures claimed by side A and those acknowledged by side B, I've modified the Casualties and Losses section. For both sides, it now contains separate sections on how many casualties the side has admitted to have suffered and on how many casualties the other side claims it has inflicted.

I feel that this is the best way to keep the figures from being mixed up and to prevent edit-wars. Please comment if you disagree, otherwise please add as much sourced information as possible.

Whoops, too fast. That was me. Tritec (talk) 20:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

South Ossetia claimed that it had killed 700 Georgians in the Battle of Tskinvali —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.30.253 (talk) 20:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Didn't spot it in the article Battle of Tskhinvali, do you have a source for the claim? I guess keeping up with the casualties will be difficult, as the claims will vary widely. Also, the question on who can be said to represent the official Russian position and who the official Georgian position regarding casualties is a difficult one. Tritec (talk) 20:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Question: What do we do about the 21 dead reported earlier and the 18 dead reported today? Is it 39 that we can report for Russia as confirmed, since they had confirmed 21 at one point then 18 at another without much clarification?70.131.218.57 (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)Shane

I think we can change it to 39. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.30.253 (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

And how would a new member do so since this article is, rightly. semi-protected?ShaneMarsh (talk) 20:33, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Add the proposed text to the discussion page, and request that an established member move the material to the mainspace article. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I see. Well, all I would think would be in order would be the change from 21 to 39...so if an established member would like to do that, rock on.ShaneMarsh (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

God damn, no. The fog of war and/or propaganda war is so great they even don't know/don't want to reveal their own losses, and you want to publish also their enemy losses claims? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 20:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I feel that the claims should be published. As I implied in the first post, parties usually tend to under-report their own losses and over-report the casualties they think the other side has suffered. We shouldn't simply report the casualties acknowledged by both parties and assume that they are closer to the truth than the casualties the other side claims to have inflicted.

I think we should report both claimed and acknowledged casualties, rather than implicitly suggesting that the acknowledged casualties represent "the truth". Tritec (talk) 21:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Someone changed it to 21, despite the agreement here.ShaneMarsh (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

References

Reading some of the debates ongoing around references I thought I'd do some analysis of the sources by country. As of 2:00pm PST there were 274 reference links and they break down as follows:

Russia 114
International (AP, AFP, Reuters) 45
UK 35
USA 30
Georgia 16
EU (exclude UK) 14
Israel 6
India 3
United Nations 3
Unidentifiable 2
Ausralia 1
Estonia 1
Lithuania 1
Malaysia 1
New Zeland 1
South Africa 1

Macutty (talk) 21:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

While large internationally and maintaining a strict editorial neutralality reuters is a british news agency and AFP is a french government agency (Agence France-Presse, (not alleging bias just your breaking them down by origin) WatcherZero (talk) 21:48, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

There's an almost even number of Russian and western sources. I'd like to see more that aren't from either side, personally. More from the middle-east, Africa, China, India etc.. LokiiT (talk) 22:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Most of them will be repeating Western sources, since they don't have correspondents in Georgia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The west is not a side in this conflict. Georgia is on one side and Russia/S. Ossetia is on the other. I was trying to demonstrate the unbalanced number of references from one of the belligerents (Russia) in this article. I’d suggest we not use any references from either Georgia or Russia in the article to demonstrate fact as neither is going to fairly or accurately report events as they happen. Maybe a section devoted to listing the claims made by either’s media (or propaganda depending on how you want to look at it) but using them as references of fact is pointless. Macutty (talk) 01:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

actually, the west is very much on one side of this conflict. Georgia is an ally of the USA and candidate for NATO and the EU. by excluding Russian and Georgian sources would make this entire excecise a massive opinion piece. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.203.223.29 (talk) 06:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Apparently Russian journalists that are traveling with Russian troops are seeing more action than western ones that are fleeing Gori together with Saakashvili. Pardon my sarcasm. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 05:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes the Russians have a good sense of the show...77.54.184.121 (talk) 12:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Well there's also a difference in that virtually all Russian media is influenced, if not controlled my the government in Russia, where virtually all media outlets in the west report freely. And being an ally to Georgia and backing international law does not make the west a party to this conflict. Macutty (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article appears unbalanced in its sourcing, with Russian sources outnumbering Georgian sources by over a 7 to 1 ratio. Russian sources are possibly controlled by the Russian Government, the same as Georgian sources are likely to be controlled by thers. Europe, the U.S, and international press services such as AP, AFP and Reuters are non-partisan, and are to be preferred to provide NPOV coverage. Edison (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

George Bush Speech Aug 11th

Upon returning to the White House from China George Bush has given a speech setting out that the US interpretation of the Russian motive is regime change and their intelligence indicates Russian planes are preparing to sortie a massive raid on the civilian Tblisi International Airport. He goes on to condemn attacks on communication infrastructure and repeats the previously stated US position that Russia should cease hostilities and withdraw to the August 6th lines. WatcherZero (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

UN transcript from 10 Aug

I updated the 10 August emergency session of the United Nations Security Council section by substituting text from the UN transcript http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N08/455/78/PDF/N0845578.pdf?OpenElement. It is a very interesting transcript Jason3777 (talk) 21:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we should use official UN transcripts where ever possible instead of News Articles about the sessions. They record EXACTLY who said what, not what is reportedly said. Jason3777 (talk) 21:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Link doesn't work for me, it says I need to allow cookies (which doesn't help either). Would be useful to know if I'm the only one with such a problem, as a non-accessable reference is probably not very useful. OelnJa (talk) 22:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can access it with no problem. Do you have a pdf reader?Jason3777 (talk) 22:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

But we should not pick our own quotes out of the UN transcripts. That's WP:OR. Let the news organizations decide what's newsworthy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I simply replaced the CNN references with the original UN text. I did let them decide what was important.Jason3777 (talk) 23:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, the original link to CNN article follows "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon" in the same section.Jason3777 (talk) 23:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added the CNN ref to both of the UN references. Thanks Septentrionalis PMAnderson, I read the WP:OR and I assure you I don’t do Original Research on WikipediaJason3777 (talk) 23:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The above link does not work for me either. But the .pdf document referred to by Jason3777 can be retrieved from the UN Security Council site here (the one from Aug 10th, there are others as well). 132.68.248.44 (talk) 22:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, this one works for me, thanks. OelnJa (talk) 23:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can access it easily with Firefox, but can not access it with Internet Explore, nor Internet Explorer, Flock or Netscape on my roommate’s computer (very old and very slow computer. Does anyone know why this is occuring?Jason3777 (talk) 23:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

This is strange, because they both use the same http address. Does anyone know why, or how I can ref it better since the address are the same? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jason3777 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can no longer access this site through Firefox, even though I accessed it all day with no problem. Could some explain what is going on. How do we access the UN documents and reference them? This should be public information. Why is this change occurring? Does the UN not want easy access to the UN transcripts? This is very confusing. How do I mark up a UN transcript document in Wiki? Where can I get information on Wiki concerning how the reference these document? Please anyone who knows how to access a direct UN transcript page please let me know what format in ref to use to easily access. What talk group should I go to to find the correct ref format to use to access a UN page. It seems that the UN is closing easy access to their transcripts unsouceable. This change happened today. Earlier - easy, currently not possible through the http address even the the address is the same whether using the direct address or going though the alternate above address. This is very disturbing. They are making it hard to access the transcripts using a reference. Could it be politics?Jason3777 (talk) 03:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jason3777 (talk • contribs) 03:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Changed refs to access the UN index of documents and added to the title what the document code to select. It seems to be a matter of UN web security and you have to go through a valid UN entry point to access the document. You can't just link straight to document. There is apparently no template for this in Wiki Cite. Also the page number must be tricked to show correctly, because one does not want to search 18 pages for the quote. There should be a cite template for this situation. If there is, please let me know.Jason3777 (talk) 19:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems related to cookie/browser-cache handling. Accessing the transcript by going all the way through this UN search engine indeed creates the same link as the one you gave and displays the .pdf file. Immediately after this successful access, clicking on your initial link also opened the same .pdf for me. But after purging cookies the direct link stopped working. Also, when clicking the transcript link on this UN page I gave above, a random path is created unique to every download attempt. Some info on the access methods is here. I would not blame politics. Anyway, thank you for finding this document. 132.68.72.110 (talk) 10:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

concerning the edit I made18:34, August 11, 2008 Jason3777 (Talk | contribs) (137,993 bytes) (→August 10: Georgia begins withdrawing from Tskhinvali: removed alleged "regime change" becauce not documented in state Russian source.) should read "stated". SorryJason3777 (talk) 22:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to thank you Jason3777 for putting this here. It was a most informative and interesting read. A shame we can't just add the whole page as citation.210.215.75.4 (talk) 03:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't make grammar corrections due to lock

Apparently I am not eligible to make any edits, but there were a few sentences / concepts that were worded in a confusing or improper manner. Can someone make these changes?
First, in the introduction: "The conflict began in August 2008; after declaring a ceasefire." This is not correctly punctuated. A dash may be more appropriate, but a semi-colon suggests that a new idea was begun that requires both a subject and verb. The second problem with this is that it is a confusing statement. Usually cease-fires require conflict to have alread ensued. What cease-fire is being referred to? If it is referring to the conflict in the early 90's, the phrase could probably be completely removed as previous sentences implied that those conflicts had been at least temporarily resolved. If the phrase is retained, however, it should be clarified what the cease-fire refers to.
The second, also in the introduction: "South Ossetian leadership claimed that the Georgian side begun shooting first." This statement already has the problem of being uncited, but the word "begun" is not the correct word. Either "began" or "had begun". As it stands, it is grammatically incorrect.
The final oddity is referred to above over the dispute regarding occupation of Gori: "According to Georgian officials, the city of Gori, 40 miles (64 km) from the Georgain capital, has fallen to Russian forces.[163] Russian's defense ministry denied the information, claiming there were no russian troops on Gori. [164]. Also, this was confirmed by Reuters reporters James Kilner and Margarita Antidze, who said that there is no any "trace of troops or military vehicles, it is absolutely deserted".[165] This has also been stated by the British Foreign Secretary who said '...British representatives on the ground and the media have reported that Russia has extended the fighting today well beyond South Ossetia, attacking the Georgian port of Poti ,and the town of Gori, ... I deplore this.'[166]" The way it is currently phrased ("This has also been stated...") implies that the statement from the UK should reinforce the assertion that Gori was not, in fact, occupied. The statement made seems to do quite the opposite. The person cited only makes the statement that his sources said that Gori had been occupied and that he does not approve. It does not back-up the Reuters report, as the text currently implies that it should. The text should be changed accordingly.
Could an editor that is able to make these changes please do so? Thanks. BobertWABC (talk) 21:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

New Map

I just created a new map showing the development of the first few days of the conflict / war ... however you want to call it. It may be interesting for the article. -- DanteRay (talk) 22:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to marking movement of refugees with arrows. It is very confusing. Colchicum (talk) 22:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

What are your sources, by the way? Colchicum (talk) 22:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It's incoherent, it doesn't give me the slightest grasp on the conflict. What sources did you use? LokiiT (talk) 22:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It's based on this map from a German newspaper -- DanteRay (talk) 22:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It might make more sense if I could read all those little text boxes, I can't read German though. LokiiT (talk) 22:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Those boxes describe the basic stuff which is written in the wikipedia article ... attacks on pipelines, the attacks on Gori and Poti etc ... And I think with the information from the article the map makes sense. Come on, it's a map and nothing more. -- DanteRay (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No offense but i don't like the map, its too chaotic, not easy to understand. I think a simpler version of that with less pictures and colours would be better. Ijanderson977 (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Well then don't take it. It was just a suggestion, nothing more. -- DanteRay (talk) 22:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The map is not written in proper English (for example, "Chechenia"). --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 23:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems you're marking areas which have merely been bombed as "fights" but you haven't actually marked the bombing campaign against the Kodori Gorge, which doesn't make a lot of sense.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

you could be a bit more supportive of the initiative. the map certainly needs some improvement, but it definitely is a good idea. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 02:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I changed the "fights" to "attacks" and added the bombardment in the Kodori Gorge. Also I changed "Chechenia" to "Chechen" (btw. I didn't post the names of the cities and regions there myself ... the map came this way ... so it's not my fault that the map isn't written in proper English.) -- DanteRay (talk) 05:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is this particular map a good idea? There are enough in article already and this map wouldn't show anything vastly different since it couldn't reasonable claim to show Russian frontlines for which we can find no independent verification - for instance the map shows Gori behind Russian frontlines but it increasing seems that the claim that Gori had fallen to Russian forces was more due to statements made out of Georgian government confusion as opposed to actual fact. And given that, how can we be sure that Poti, Zugdidi and Senaki are behind Russian frontlines as well? In the flurry of news items and snippets I remember seeing some story about Georgia being okay with the Russian forces in Abkhazia who are acting as peacekeepers being able to deploy in Zugdidi as part of a ceasefire deal, then another story came out that Russian forces were occupying Zugdidi. Russia admitted to raiding Senaki and simple geography should tell us that in order to raid Senaki Russian forces must have passed through or relatively near Zugdidi and for all we know Zugdidi could simply have been raided as well. The idea that every war must have "frontlines" if conventional forces are involved is too simplistic. Nobody drew frontline maps for the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, because Israeli forces weren't moving into and holding territory long enough for there to be frontlines anyway (at least not until the closing stages of the war when Israel sent forces much deeper into southern Lebanon and even then the situation was too confusing to draw proper frontlines). For most of that war, what was happening was more like numerous and sometimes lengthy Israeli raids - who's to say the same thing or something similar couldn't be happening here? And given that the first reports I saw about Russian forces ever being as far into Georgia as Senaki was from Russia itself (and it was supposedly after the fact when Russian soldiers had supposedly already left Senaki) it seems strange that somehow the Georgian government missed that particular development and may point towards the Georgian government disorganization/confusion when it comes to know what is actually going on. So drawing any frontlines based off independent news sources who are simply stating Georgian claims is probably jumping the gun until those independent news sources actually verify the claims and counter-claims (if they ever do). The map also seems to show airstrikes on or near some of the pipelines, but on the BBC one report had said that the pipeline operators had reported no attacks on the pipelines but a fire along the pipeline in Turkey, so even some of the mapped airstrikes might be questionable (though the ones near Tbilisi should be okay since it should be easy to find some verification of any airstrike on the Tbilisi airport and nearby military base). So what's left for the map to show other than locations which other maps show just as well?72.27.174.160 (talk) 05:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This was unnecessarily lengthy. You have a point regarding some inaccuracies, but the benefit of having this or a similar map is to show how far Russians had advanced (even if they haven't stayed long) and which points they targeted either by air raids or otherwise. It may be difficult to draw precise lines, but this conflict is still ongoing and virtually nothing that's written in this article can be 100% verified and true. Now, how they reached Senaki, shot down two copters and killed dozens of soldiers, I'd live to someone else to figure. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 05:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

How was it unnecessarily lengthy? I don't recall there being a recommended length with regards to posts. And the map is barely useful because "how far the Russians had advanced" is based on the assumption that we have verified how far they advanced and the line of control would be inaccurate since not everything behind that line of control could be presumed to be under Russian occupation anyway unless there are verifiable reports that even most of the villages and towns in that triangular area formed by Zugdidi-Senaki-Poti had had Russian forces passing through them. You say "now that they have reached Senaki" which indicates that you still view this as a conventional set-piece war where armies fight big battles and intentionally set to occupy territory. A raid is not the same as an advance, otherwise it would nice if someone would explain the lack of maps showing Israeli "advances" into Lebanon in 2006. If having 6 maps, 3 of which show Georgia and Senaki is not enough to allow readers to know where Russians troops raided, then a better map would simply show arrows indicating the direction of the raid or raids and indicating that the arrows represent raids. I've never yet seen a credible map which shows areas that were raided as being occupied or behind a line of control. Not even the source map attempts to show anything like that.72.27.174.160 (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh and note now that the war seems to be ending or at leasting heading towards a ceasefire, so when that happens a clearer picture should become available.72.27.174.160 (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I added some short remarks on the map to make it more clear. -- DanteRay (talk) 06:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This new map is much better than the previous map Ijanderson977 (talk) 06:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree it is a lot better though I thought Russia had tanks in Abkhazia. Also Russia has pulled out of Senaki as I recall. Also putting the line of control a little north of Gori would be better as there is no indication they have actually taken the city. On another note the proper name for the Russian province is Chechnya. All the same I'm not so sure there should be a map of this since we're talking about an ongoing conflict. However, I think this could be a very good idea when this conflict ends.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I added a tank in Abkhazia and moved the border around Gori. -- DanteRay (talk) 06:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

But the orange arrows are positioned wrongly. The troops most certainly didn't fly over the Caucasus mountains. They went through the Roki tunnel into S. Ossetia, and it is not clear how did they get to Abkhazia, probably from the west across the Psou River, maybe partially from the sea, but certainly not from the north across the mountain ranges. Quite possibly they had already been deployed by August 8. And the most serious problem is that we have no sources for all this. Colchicum (talk) 06:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, it's based on this map. So there is a source. -- DanteRay (talk) 06:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see my maps (based on this one from the Wikipedia, by the way) getting some use. :) Regarding Gori being taken or not: I couldn't positively identify the military base there based on the satellite images, but the main industrial-like complex around the town is in the north of it, in the Liakhvi valley in the direction of Tskhinvali, so it's most likely somewhere there. Calling Gori "not taken" when the military facilities of the town are is then a mere technicality and sh--MartinSojka (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)ould be dismissed as trying to muddle the real situation. There are, so far we know, no defenders in the town. All it would take the Russian forces to do to "take" it is to make a five minute stroll down the river. --MartinSojka (talk) 09:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It actually isn't a "technicality" insofar as Wikipedia is not a crystal ball - if Russian forces would only need to walk for 5 minutes to actually take the town, then until they have done so it shouldn't be on anything in Wikipedia because if they never do take that 5 minute stroll, then Wikipedia's information becomes inaccurate and comically so because it had been used in a crystal ball sense. If one force withdraws from a town/abandons it and the other force does not actually occupy it, then the town hasn't been taken in any sense of the word. The town has been abandoned and if some term must be found other than "abandoned", it could be considered a "no-man's-land" but to say it was "taken" is to stretch things beyond verifiability and credibility - just as it would be to say that British and Belgian forces "occupied" parts of France in World War I.72.27.174.160 (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Relax dude, it's changed. The "border" does not include Gori anymore. (The Russians are btw. 12 km away from Gori). And I added that it was the "approximate Russian line of control". I think that is the best solution, and if you think something else, well, who cares, then create your own map. -- DanteRay (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and a "simple" coloured map is here if anyone wants to use it. The coloured part of the Black Sea denote Georgian and Russian territorial sea zone (12 nautical miles off the shore, basically), by the way.

Okay, Chechnya is finally written correctly; I added that the troups came through the Roki Tunnel; -- DanteRay (talk) 15:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the arrows are still wrong. The top left arrow crosses high mountain ranges. I assure you that no tank will ever pass there. The only road from Russia to Abkhazia goes along the seashore and crosses the Psou River (and the road is shown on the map, by the way). Furthermore, it has been claimed that the Russian troops had already been deployed by the beginning of the war, so I am not sure that any arrow is appropriate in Abkhazia at all.

The Ossetian arrows are also somewhat arbitrary. We know, and it is referenced, that the Russian troops came from North Ossetia through the Roki tunnel of the Transkam, yet the map for some reason shows a tank attack from Ingushetia, which is quite far from the Roki tunnel. Colchicum (talk) 15:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Look at it again, I think you didn't look at it long enough, the top left arrow crosses high mountain ranges - you are right - but this arrow shows the movement of the aircraft (aircraft-symbol). The tanks came by a carrier ship, mostly (see comment below by Alsandro). If they had already been deployed there, there is no need for a further arrow.

I added that the troops came through the Roki tunnel ... I even looked up the coordinates here on Wikipedia and checked on Google Maps where this tunnel is, and thats where the arrow on the right side is. -- DanteRay (talk) 15:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

corrections on the map

I have a few comments, suggestions: major raids in the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia were or are being carried out by air, so instead of tanks the arrow should show airplanes. The tanks were deployed in Ochamchira port town of Abkhazia by a carrier ship, which then entered Zugdidi and went to Senaki. So ideally, another arrow should show tanks entering from the sea. Also, I haven't heard about any fighting or explosiions near Gagra (north of Abkhazia). If that's verified, ok, but otherwise that mark needs to be removed. Thanks. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 14:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for information, I changed it according to your suggestions. -- DanteRay (talk) 15:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you make the arrow coming from the see split into two directions (one arrow with two heads, sort of), one pointing towards Kodori gorge, the other towards Zugdidi/Senaki. Also, two explosion signs in the Abkhazia proper are, I think, unnecessary, or could be placed more close to each other - Kodori gorge is very narrow. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 17:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- DanteRay (talk) 18:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Guys, pls correct the map [7] - Russian forces approached Tzkhinvaly by Dzari's road, which goes around as the main road (through Kurta and Tamarasheni) was controlled by Georgian militaries and they wouldn't be able to get to the city. 87.236.29.60 (talk) 21:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)Al

International Crisis Group - NEW MEDIA RELEASE

Georgia Conflict Alert: Russia must withdraw its troops from Georgia

Tbilisi/Brussels, 11 August 2008: Russia must cease its advances within Georgia, immediately withdraw its troops to its peacekeeping positions, and restore the status quo ante.

During the course of today, 11 August 2008, Russian troops, backed by its air force, advanced deep into Georgia, well beyond the boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and apparently took control of the Georgian towns of Gori, Senaki and Zugdidi, among others.

Russia has no legitimate security interests justifying its advance beyond the boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is not performing a peacekeeping function or defending the rights of Russian citizens. Today’s advances and attacks raise real doubts about Russia’s intentions with respect to Georgia. These steps appear aimed at undermining Georgia’s capacity to function as a state.

Russia must immediately agree to the ceasefire proposal made by European Union and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) envoys, the French and Finnish Foreign Ministers Bernard Kouchner and Alexander Stubb, which Georgia has signed.

The international community, and particularly the United States and the European Union, must make it unequivocally clear that Russia’s aggression is a flagrant violation of international law and undermines its legitimacy as a defender of that law. It must also declare that failure to withdraw its troops back to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then to Russia, will be strongly condemned and will significantly damage Russia’s relations with the U.S. and EU. Western heads of state should deliver this message forcefully to the Russian president and prime minister, including in person in Moscow.

Once hostilities have ceased and withdrawal occurred, negotiations should take place between Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia to sign a non-resumption of hostilities text and agree to a revised peacekeeping arrangement and new negotiations format. All parties must secure the return of displaced persons and provide humanitarian assistance.[8]--93.177.151.101 (talk) 22:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Never heard of this group. They don't seem to have a lot influence. -- DanteRay (talk) 22:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. Also, aren't they supposed to "ring a bell" BEFORE conflict starts? Seems like they failed to do their job. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 05:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, these guys sounds like one of the hundreds of over zealous 'rights' groups that loves to cry over these things with no real understanding —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.203.223.29 (talk) 06:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is some anti-russia, pro US, group even though ossetia wants independence and can allie itself with whoever it likes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.59.87 (talk) 07:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

They are one of the most influential, non-partisan and well respected lobbying groups in Brussels. If you haven't heard of them, then be content that everybody who works in the European Parliament has! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.32.22 (talk) 08:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And that means what? Be less vague and more specific please. No insinuations and all that. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 09:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Gori never fell according to a BBC citation of a Georgian government spokesman

The BBC's latest headline report on the conflict (last updated 21:39 GMT on August 11th) cites a Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman as saying that Russian troops were never in Gori: The conflict over South Ossetia also appeared to have widened when Georgia accused Russia of capturing the town of Gori, just 76km (47 miles) from Tbilisi.

"This is a total onslaught," Georgia's National Security Council secretary Alexander Lomaia told the AFP news agency, adding that Georgian troops were pulling back to defend Tbilisi.

Russia's defence ministry quickly issued a statement rejecting the claim, saying there were none of its troops in Gori.

Later, a spokesman for the Georgian interior ministry told the BBC that there had never been Russian troops in Gori.

He said the Russian Army had taken up a position just outside the town after destroying a military base and admitted the Georgian army had fled the area without putting up a fight.

Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze then said.... and the article goes to outline more claims and counterclaims.

For the whole article see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7554507.stm

Perhaps this should be added to the section on the article about the claims surrounding Gori?72.27.174.160 (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

We have that above. (It does not say Gori never fell; but that the Georgians fled instead of fighting for it, and that the Russians did not occupy it. If the Georgians all fled, there would not be much reason to cccupy Gori.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The NYT cites "numerous but unconfirmed reports" of the capture of Gori. This adds up to the same thing: wait till tomorrow. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe the Russians have occupied the area around Gori and the suburbs. Thats from local Georgians I have talked to. Attilavolciak07 (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Could those local Georgians acts as citizen reporter and act as reporter independent from govt, and put things on the website so that it can be put as an reference? We can't put something as an reference because a writer hear/know another guy see blah blah blah--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 01:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

as an valid reference it must not be oiginal research, having who is author, when is written, and hopeful he is not a solider nor offical.--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 01:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Last night the reporters of a Turkish Televisin, Kanal D , verified that Russian troops occupied Gori, that they had to cut the live broadcasting from the area because Russians were approaching. Link to the video (in Turkish): [9](talk) 06:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

But US defense officials said they were unable to corroborate the Georgian claims. "We don't see anything that supports they are in Gori," said a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know why the Georgians are saying that." http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gj_jyRnqBYekXz2MyszBj6k_ZMtw —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vadimkaa (talk • contribs) 13:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Top Gun vandalizing Battle of Tskhinvali again

this again and again and again - while there's actually NOTHING about "180" in the article (not even to mention anything about "180 soldiers killed at Tskhinvali" - plus, even few hours ago Georgia was saying it didn't lost that many soldiers TOTAL).

I told him. In the talk page, in the edit summary, even in the article's body. He knows. And he did it anyway. Can he be blocked from editing at least one article? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 22:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Russia handing out passports - a suggestion

As former citizens of the now non-existent USSR, many residents of South Ossetia chose to exercise their right to Russian citizenship (citiation to the relevant 1991 Russian law provision needed) in order to obtain Russian social security benefits, which Georgia did not provide to the separatist region. (Lennie 00:00 GMT 12.08.08)

Seems reasonable. Find an article on it in press. Although it is not for war article, it may be interesting for South Ossetia and Georgian-Ossetian conflict.--Garret Beaumain (talk) 23:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't there be info available on this from a Russian nationality law wikipedia article and it's references? I think Russian nationality law did (and maybe still does) allow anyone who claimed Soviet citizenship to apply for Russian citizenship. Not 100% sure on that though, but if that is the case it should mean that technically citizens from all the other ex-Soviet republics would have been eligible for Russian citizenship shortly after the collapse of the USSR.72.27.174.160 (talk) 23:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Since it is alleged that Russia "handed out" passports to create a pre-text for invading Georgia, the position should be clarified in this article. The issue of passports is so often quoted in the media that it should be given appropiate space here. There is a good reference to it in the interview with Foreign MInister of Russia Lavrov, which can be found here: http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/f68cd37b84711611c3256f6d00541094/f87a3fb7a7f669ebc32574a100262597?OpenDocument (Lennie, 00:36 GMT 12.08.08)

What's the deal with "handing out"? Nobody's been doing that, Russian passports aren't charity. To get a Russian passport, you have to apply for citizenship at the Russian Embassy(and that's the standard procedure for any country), and possibly you could get one, say under special circumstances of being a separatist from an unrecognized republic. That implies South Ossetians voluntarily applying for Russian passports. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The reason some people use the expression "handing out" is because news sources have occasionally implied that the standards used by Russia in distributing passports in South Ossetia were effectively non-existent -- that all that was required was living in South Ossetia. The NY Times editorial board, for instance, comments that "Under the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin, Russia had already been granting citizenship and distributing passports to virtually all of the adult residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia." If that's true, it's hard to imagine "possibly you could get one" as an accurate description of what happened. 66.92.149.24 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 12:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, Russia here is passive, it does not perform an active distribution of passports, and that is what I'm trying to explain. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 21:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Introduction

Can we agree on one HERE?

From my side - the short-lived ceasefire was uniliteral Georgian (it should be noted), so the rebels technically couldn't broke it, as they were not binded by any agreements. (it's kinda like the later Georgian uniliteral ceasefires/ceasefire offers, all ignored by Russia.) Btw, Georgia said 10 Georgians civilians and peacekeepers were killed in the alleged initial rebel attack.[10] --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 23:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

When the source is CNN according to the article, why don't you look for the original article there? It would be a better reference.-- DanteRay (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Original website in Google cache only. But I guess it was also reported elsewhere. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 23:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Are there any prove that peace offers from Georgian side really taken place? Diplomatic missions? Official notes? Documents? Anything? 77.87.119.11 (talk) 23:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Like this? LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on Russia on Monday to accept Georgia's offer of a ceasefire, saying Russian military action threatened regional stability and could damage Moscow's ties with other countries. (...) "The Georgian government has offered a ceasefire, which I urge the Russians to reciprocate without delay," he said. Answer by Russian warkeepers: "A cease-fire would not be a solution. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 00:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russia handing out passports - a suggestion II

(I am sorry, I don't know how to add to the above section) - Since it is alleged that Russia "handed out" passports to create a pre-text for invading Georgia, the position should be clarified in this article. The issue of passports is so often quoted in the media that it should be given appropiate space here. There is a good reference to it in the interview with Foreign MInister of Russia Lavrov, which can be found here: http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/f68cd37b84711611c3256f6d00541094/f87a3fb7a7f669ebc32574a100262597?OpenDocument (Lennie, 00:36 GMT 12.08.08)

38 thousand people who live in South Ossetia have Russian internal passports and included in the voters lists of Russian Federation. According to propiska records in their passports, they live (sic!) in North Ossetia (not in the South Ossetia) as described here.Biophys (talk) 02:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

So, here is the trick. They can not give to these people a "propiska" outside the Russian Federation, according to the existing Russian laws (hence this is North Ossetia). But to live in a place not indicated in their passport (that is in South Ossetia) is also a violation of Russian administrative law. The entire combination with passports is illegal, although only people familiar with the Soviet/Russian Propiska system can realize that.Biophys (talk) 02:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you're wrong here. SO is not Russia and living abroad (having Russian citizenship and propiska) is not a crime according to Russian laws. Alæxis_¿question? 04:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, living abroad is not a crime. However having a propiska in a place where a person never lived (North Ossetia in this case) is a blatant violation of the existing regulations in Russia, if I understand correctly.Biophys (talk) 13:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably you understand wrong. Most of people from S.Ossetia have relatives in N.Ossetia who may grand them propiska (let's say I could invite you "to live" with me, but not to own my house). In my understanding, applying for Russian citizenship when you from ex-USSR and you have relatives who can grant you propiska you could be pretty sure you will obtain it.

The reference above to the transcript of the Echo of Moscow radio programme here is in fact a reference to a statement by an anonymous caller to the programme. It a dubious source, the claim must be verified. (Lennie 03:57 GMT 12.08.08)

Is there some Georgian visa law in place that is required of Russian citizens living in SO? How are they claiming to be citizens of a separate country from Georgia, yet have a huge proportion of the citizenry be passported from Russia and thus be considered Russians not Georgians? This in itself seems to be an invasion. Jmedinacorona (talk) 04:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI, many countries(for example Canada, Russia) allow _multiple_ citizenships, hence no visa requirement. I suggest you research Georgian law before making such bold statements. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 06:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read The Constitution of Georgia, Ch. 2, Art. 12(2) [11] "A citizen of Georgia may not simultaneously be a citizen of another country." As well as reading the "Oath of a citizen of Georgia" [12] "I (name, surname) do solemnly swear that upon my admittance to citizenship of Georgia, I will bear true faith and allegiance to Georgia, observe and support the Constitution and laws, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia and show respect for Georgian culture and national traditions." Jmedinacorona (talk) 16:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Then I suggest you read it as well, for Ch. 3, Art. 12(3) [13] states that "The procedures for naturalisation and loss of citizenship are determined by organic law." - that means thousands cases of loss of the citizenship, which have to be processed by Georgian courts. I'm pretty sure that did not happen, therefore South Ossetians are effectively citizens of at least 3 countries - Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia. Also, if that DID happen, that would effectively render majority of South Ossetians as non Georgians, stating that almost everyone who lives in SO is NOT Georgian. It's like recognizing their autonomy de jure. 68.151.34.161 (talk) 21:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

A bit too long a Separate Article called Humanitarian impact of the 2008_South_Ossetia_war

A bit too long a Separate Article called Humanitarian impact of the 2008_South_Ossetia_war Could help cut the length down. ARBAY TALKies 23:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

August 12th, already?

It isn't quite August 12 yet, but there is information posted as of now under the Aug 12 heading, but then again, it depends on your time zone. Should the article's timeline use UTC dates? --Josephdurnal (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It's August 12th in Moscow/Georgian time. LokiiT (talk) 00:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, send a special envoy to inform them to use wikipedia time when they perform warfare.. --Leladax (talk) 00:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

what would be Wikipedia time anyways?--Jakezing (talk) 02:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In accordance with Stephen Colbert's concept of wikiality, Wikipedian time would be whatever time the most Wikipedia users agreed upon as indicated by what a Wikipedia article containing the subject stated. It would progress according to the article's description. Just wanted to be helpful and answer Jakezing's question. Christiangoth (talk) 04:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Normally it's based on local time zone where the event occurs. But at the moment South Ossetia article is claiming the local time zone there is raw UTC +03:00 and the Georgia article is claiming the time zone there is raw UTC +04:00 but the lack of time zone names on both those articles is making it difficult to verify. It's further complicated by neither article not stating weather or not Daylight Saving Time is observed. But if the one hour time difference is correct then military operations by Georgia between Midnight & 1 AM (their time) would be the previous day according to South Ossetia. Jon (talk) 13:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The edit history time stamp is in UTC, as are our comment time stamps. Although I think setting the timeline to UTC would make the article easier to understand for a world wide audience, I guess it isn't that important. --Josephdurnal (talk) 14:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Start date

Which is it? The lede says that it began on 7 August. Then it says it began on 8 August. Is this a local time/UTC discrepancy? --Elliskev 23:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Rebels allegedly "broke" the small-level conflict ceasefire (which was Georgian uniliteral) on August 7 and on the same day Georgian artillery started firing back. On the early hours of August 8 the Georgians launched a barrage on the rebel capital, and at dawn the ground offensive. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 23:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. So we need a consensus on how to word that in the lede, because the way it is now isn't going to work. There are two contradictory statements. --Elliskev 00:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It was local 8th (just after midnight), Europe/US 7th. Ru magister (talk) 00:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Argh. It's back. The lede says, "The 2008 South Ossetia war is a military conflict that started on 8 August 2008 involving Georgia, South Ossetian and Abkhazian secessionists and the Russian Federation...The conflict began on 7 August 2008 after declaring a ceasefire Georgia claimed that South Ossetian separatists had shelled Georgian villages"

There is obviously more in contention than a local time/UTC difference. --Elliskev 13:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

McCain top adviser was lobbying Georgia?

I'm not fond of watching over american elections, but it is somewhat related:

John McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a leading expert on U.S.-allied Georgia -- and was a paid lobbyist for the former Soviet republic until March, in the run-up to what has become a major battle between Georgia and Russia.
Democratic rival Barack Obama's presidential campaign was quick to try to paint Mr. Scheunemann's dual roles as a conflict of interest after Sen. McCain swiftly took Georgia's side in the dispute, and cited it as evidence that Sen. McCain is "ensconced in a lobbyist culture," as Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan told reporters over the weekend.

[14]

McCain may lose some points and Obama win some. Does it fit "International reaction", perhaps?

I don't think it would be right for this article. McCain's previous involvement with Georgia will likely be a positive for him, and Americans are not likely to be bothered by lobbying efforts of a small democracy that was part of the former Soviet Union. --Josephdurnal (talk) 14:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Captain Obvious, please be polite and don't simply remove what you don't like. I suppose it may be useful information for article and perhaps even more articles in Wikipedia. Garret Beaumain (talk) 00:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

About TimeLine

July 31 was ended "Immediate Response" NATO training at Vaziani Military Base (near Tbilisi), with 1000 US military specialists (from United States Army Europe, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 1st Battalion 121 Infantry Regiment Georgian National Guard (Atlanta, Georgia) and 5045th General Support Unit.) Ru magister (talk) 00:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Request Map of Frontlines

If it wouldn't be a problem - and I realise the situation is very fluid - could somebody please create a map showing the portions of Georgia under Russian occupation? Thanks! Canadian Bobby (talk) 00:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If the frontline is too complicated to make, just the key bridges and roads under Russian control would give a good idea of how far inside Georgia they are. --Lgriot (talk) 00:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

One problem is that conflicting reports are being given by the Russian and Georgian sides regarding the extent of the Russian advance. At one point, a Georgian official made the risible claim that the Russians had occupied fully half of Georgian territory. Without any reliable information, it's hard to construct an accurate map. Begoner (talk) 01:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This might be a very large amount of work to successfully verify for a strategic map that could be out of date quickly. I would not oppose it if it could be done, but just keep the cost/benefit ratio in mind. Christiangoth (talk) 03:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Article SEVERELY outdated (also: international reaction and more)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2008_South_Ossetia_war#Number_of_Georgian_refugees for example. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 00:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"The European Union and the United States expressed a will to send a joint delegation to try to negotiate a cease-fire.[31" makes them all look completely neutral, while in fact the Western European countries and the United States condamned Russia in many, many often really sharp statements (which of course Russia all ignored, but it's another thing), which here are not represented even at International reaction to the 2008 South Ossetia war. They also took some actual if sometimes pactically symbolic action (besides stuff like Ukraine closing Crimea ports after Russian navy leaves or US airlifting Georgian soldiers back from Iraq, for example Poland gave Georgia the Polish president's own server to break the information blockade). But instead of the condemnation and the calls for Russia to AGREE to ceasefire, it's:

On August 10, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said the silence of Western nations during Georgia's initial incursion into South Ossetia "raises very serious questions about sincerity and their attitude towards our country," and also accused Western media of a reporting bias and lack of objectivity.[247] He ruled out peace talks with Georgia until it pulled back its forces beyond the borders of South Ossetia and signed a legally binding pact renouncing the use of force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway territory of Georgia. Moscow has deployed warships off the Georgian coast to prevent the smuggling in of arms and other military supplies.[248]

in the section "Demands to end conflict" (about half of it). What the hell? Can it get any more biased?

Look at this:

U.S. President George W. Bush urged Russia on Monday to end its armed conflict with Georgia after Moscow's forces advanced deeper into the territory of its pro-Western neighbor, ignoring Western pleas to halt.
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," Bush said.
"The Russian government must reverse the course that it appears to be on...," he added, urging Russia to agree to a ceasefire offer by Georgia.[15]

A difference? An actual "demand to end conflict" instead of (for whatever reason) the Russian whining about the western "bias and lack of objectivity" in the section titled "Demands to end conflict"?

The article is lacking so many things I won't even even try to list them all now. The intro should be rewritten and updated. The "combatant reaction" section should be SERIOUSLY cleaned up. Lots and lots of stuff.

If you don't want to get "into detail" why so much focus on Russia's POV and what they think about the third party actions, instead of writing on these actual actions? (Like "Five liberal leaders from central and eastern Europe -- Poland, Ukraine and the three Baltic states -- planned to visit Tbilisi in a show or support for Saakashvili." from the same article). --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Did I mention most of this stuff here is also either badly written or appears to be just copy/pasted randomly? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 01:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Check your facts. And read news from outside the U.S. The U.S. is the only country that has really criticized Russia. Some lean towards Georgia, calling for a respect to its territorial sovereignty, including Ireland, UK and Canada. Most stayed neutral and simply called for a ceasefire. Some leaned towards Russia, saying that they respect Russia's right to intervene, including France and Germany. Some criticized the U.S. and Georgia, including Cuba and Italy. So as far as I know the international reaction has been pretty neutral here. Again, get your news from outside the U.S. media, which, honestly, sucks. Naurmacil (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ground battlefield in central and eastern Geogria

There are major ground battles with Russia and Geogria in central and eastern Geogria, why they are missing? Is it because the name of the war is "South Ossetia" and the battle far from South Ossetia are excluded?--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 01:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11georgia.html --Kittyhawk2 (talk) 01:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see, most of the assertions in that article about Russian advances deeper into Georgian territory were put forth by Georgian officials and were not independently verified. Begoner (talk) 01:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

To answer Kittyhawk's question, it is not because the name of the war is "South Ossetia" and the events you describe are not located in South Ossetia. It is actually because both sides are at least probably (and I believe definitely) conducting information warfare including for the purpose of swaying international opinion. We therefore need to be cautious in adding information that is not verified personally (rather than through belligerent governments or militaries). I am sure that all unbiased Wikipedians including myself will add any new theaters of conflict between Russia and Georgia to this article, even if that conflict is in Australia, Narnia, or the moon. Christiangoth (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

All the reports about the Russians atacking/invading/bombarding Gori turned out to be false, according to this:

As the conflict has raged, Russia and Georgia are locked in an increasingly ferocious propaganda war. Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, had claimed on Sunday that Gori was under “massive” bombardment as Russian troops attempted to take the town. It was, at best, a questionable claim — one of many made by both sides. The Daily Telegraph has maintained an almost continual presence in Gori since hostilities began and witnessed no such assault. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2542751/Georgia-Chaos-and-panic-as-people-flee-the-Russian-advance.html (Lennie 03:22 GMT 12.08.08)

That's referring to Sunday, and is in contradiction of this Guardian piece, which says Gori has "borne the brunt" of bombardments "ostensibly" meant for elsewhere. This report, again from the Guardian, quotes a named local journalist as saying that the Russians have occupied a road 2 km from the centre of Gori, causing the panic the Telegraph refers to in the rest of their report. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.28.225 (talk) 03:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I really hope that when I wake up tomorrow there is an undisputed answer about what's happening with Gori. And as long as I'm hoping, a bilateral, honored cease fire would be nice. Christiangoth (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Bad entry under August 10. Please help cite or remove.

Under August 10th actions, the following paragraph appears:

On August 10, at around 3:20 p.m. UTC, Georgia said that they ordered a ceasefire, and offered to start talks with Russia over an end to hostilities in South Ossetia.[138] Russia confirmed receiving the offer but said that "the Georgian side has not stopped military actions in South Ossetia, Georgian troops continued shelling."[139]

Source 138 is down, while 139 is this: [16] Unfortunately, a Google translation of 139 seems to directly contradict rather than support the information we have in this paragraph of the Wikipedia article. I do not have perfect trust in Google translation, so it may only be a translation issue. I would welcome other sources for this paragraph, and if several users all agree that no other sources are forthcoming and 139 is opposition to the paragraph then I suggest it be pulled. Christiangoth (talk) 01:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Source 139 confirms exactly what is said in the English sentence referencing it (sorry for the unpolished translation):

"The MID (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) confirms that a cease-fire note has been delivered to the Russian embassy in Tbilisi, but they point out the continued military operations by Tbilisi in Southern Ossetia. 'Such a note does indeed exist' a source from RF MoFA told Interfax on Sunday evening. At the same time, according to him 'the Georgian side did not cease military operations in Southern Ossetia, Georgian troops continue shelling'. Another source in Russian MoFA remarked also that the statements of the Georgian side about stopping the military operations and about withdrawal of their forces from the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict do not correspond to reality." 132.68.248.44 (talk) 02:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russo-Georgian War

I think these articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kodori_Gorge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_10_August_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tskhinvali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war

Should all be comnined in one article Russo-Georgian War of 2008 or Russia-Georgia War of 2008.--SergeiXXX (talk) 20:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Typo under August 12th

Vitaly Churkin, Russian Representative in UN, declared to journalist that Russia will not accept the resolution on South Ossetia, prepared by France. It is not exactly sure when Churkin had made the statement - before or during negotiations over the resolution. The document proposes an immediate cease-fire, and restoring the territory of Georgia as it was before the begining of the confronations. [191]

Should be "confrontations" I guess. Maybe somebody who can edit the article might change that? OelnJa (talk) 01:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The heading for August 12th is inaccurate and misleading. there are no independent sources sited and, moreover, most of the section describes something else but the Georgian retaliation. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 01:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I copyedited that paragraph (changed "confronations" to conflict). Go ahead and list other stuff you see, anyone who can't edit due to semiprotection. Antandrus (talk) 01:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Also changed the heading, per Alsandro. It's bad practice to "characterise" a day's events before they've even finished happening (and arguably bad practise anyway, since doing so imposes an interpretive overview). Antandrus (talk) 01:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Separatists' dependence on Russia

The separatist government in South Ossetia is funded by Russia. Two-thirds of their budget is supplied by Moscow. Gazprom, which is state-controlled, has made investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars in South Ossetia. These facts need to be included in the background section to explain the relationship Russia has with the separatists.

Currently the article claims that South Ossetia is de facto independent and that Russia plays the role of peacekeeper. Both of these are contentious claims and are misleading without clarifying the dominant role Russia has in South Ossetia and how dependent the separatists are on Moscow.--Kelstonian (talk) 01:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the present introduction misrepresents the South Ossetian "government" as genuine leaders of a "national liberation movement". Actually, their leader Eduard Kokoity is a Russian mafia member, reportedly a representative of an organized crime gang from the St. Petersburg (if I remember correctly, he runs gambling business). His ministers are "retired" siloviks (probably members of the "active reserve") who came from Russia. Please see this source (It tells (Russian): Kokoity is a "криминал, о котором российские политологи еще давно писали, что это ставленник бандитской петербургской группировки. А министры его - это отставные чекисты, приехавшие из России."). This is a classical puppet state own by Russia.Biophys (talk) 02:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree. The South Ossetian "cabinet" include(d) several Russian bureaucrats and officers. They are:

Yuri Morozov - "prime minister"; former director of oil factory in Kursk, Russia;

Vasily Lunev - "defense minister"; former military commissar in Perm, Russia, and deputy commander of the troops in Siberia;

Anatoly Barankevich - "secretary of security council"; former deputy commissar of the Stavropol Krai, Russia;

Anatoly Ivanov - "chief of security" (KGB); functioning major-general Russian FSB, former chief of FSB of Mordovia, Russia;

Mikhail Mindzaev - "minister of internal affairs"; former chief of staff of the minister of internal affairs of North Ossetia, Russia.--93.177.151.101 (talk) 02:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you give me some references, please? Then it can be included in the article(s).Biophys (talk) 02:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

For example, this report by Yulia Latynina tells the following (a summary). The economy of South Ossetia is very simple. The Roki tunnel is controlled by the Russian "peacekeepers" and used to serve as a channel for illegal traffic of the oil and alcohol from North Caucasus. Now this is even more primitive. Barely 20 thousand people left now in the South Ossetia from the nominal 80 thousand. However they receive various "social benefits" from Russia destined for the 50 thousand people. Colonels who command the Russian peace keepers receive a part of those money as bribes. (Russian original text: Экономика Южной Осетии раньше была устроена очень просто. Есть Рокский тоннель, он охраняется российскими миротворцами. Через тоннель в Грузию идет паленная нефть от чеченских боевиков, Другой паленный спирт для североосетинских водочных заводов. Сейчас Грузия перекрыла поток контрабанды, и экономика устроена еще проще. В Южной Осетии осталось едва ли 20 тысяч жителей из бывших 80-ти. Пособия и пенсии они получают на 50. То есть раньше полковники зарабатывали на контрабанде, сейчас на пенсиях.).Biophys (talk) 03:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I often tend to agree with her however in this case she has made several statements that are rather questionable. For example she claimed that the population of SO is now 20 thousand. The most quoted number now is 70,000, according to other sources it is about 63,000 (see South_Ossetia#Demographics). Finally, even if SO economy is mostly depends on illegal traffic and there are several Russians in the republic's leadership (Kokoyty, Mindzayev and many others are Ossetians btw) it doesn't itself contradict that it's a "genuine national liberation movement". Alæxis_¿question? 04:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This is certainly a controversial subject. Thank you. I can see that you know the Caucasus affairs. I remember that SO was actually involved in illegal traffic of something else, probably arms. Do you have any references about that?Biophys (talk) 04:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Any sources showing this to be a "genuine national liberation movement"?Biophys (talk) 13:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear Biophys, I tried to find Russian sources for the sake of neutrality. Here they are:

Morozov - http://www.ossetia.ru/news/ur-mor

Lunev - http://www.uralweb.ru/news/n328942.html

Barankevich - http://www.utro.ru/articles/2005/01/18/397255.shtml

Mindzaev - http://www.lenta.ru/lib/14190856/

--93.177.151.101 (talk) 03:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I will look at those. BTW, you are welcome to edit any other WP articles on related subjects that are not protected at the moment. You can also register as a regular user. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 04:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all "power structures" of South Ossetia are led by siloviks from Russia. This is noteworthy of course.Biophys (talk) 13:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I will remove this statement

The separatist government in South Ossetia is funded by Russia. Two-thirds of their budget is supplied by Moscow. Gazprom, which is state-controlled, has made investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars in South Ossetia.

until the proper evidence is provided.

A citation from one article by Reuters without an author (!), not analytical, without reeferences, can not serve as a reliable source for the Background section. Sounds like Yellow Pages. I can put it like this:

Some sources claim that the South Ossetian separatist government is "dependent on Russia", although these sources do not provide any reliable evidence or reference. These sources also say that the South Ossetian separatist government "is funded by Moscow", which "supplies two thirds of their annual budget" and the Russian state-controlled gas company Gazprom has made "investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars" in South Ossetia.

--Victor V V (talk) 09:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, but free discussion about improvement of the article is allowed and should be encouraged. There are no BLP violations here.Biophys (talk) 13:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I just wonder why no one else paid attention to the significant fact that the "source" lacks references and in fact serves merely as an anti-Russian propaganda. Above mentioned Yulia Latynina is more known as novelist.

By parity, all who try to trace the funding issues forget to mention that Saakashvili and his ministers directly receive salary from Washington - dozens of articles can be provided as sources. Do you need this?--Victor V V (talk) 16:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Belligerents as "successionists"?

Why are South Ossetia and Abkhazia labelled as "secessionists" under the belligerents heading in the infobox? They both have a constitution, their own elected president and parliament. Yes, they are unrecognized breakaway states but the fact remains: they are sovereign enough to run their own government. -Timberlax 01:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how "seceding" and "being able to run their own government" are incompatible or mutually exclusive. The Confederacy certainly did both. Antandrus (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The best thing to do is to add "secessionists governments". Robin Hood 1212 (talk) 21:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Background

"The full independence of South Ossetia was supported by 99% of South Ossetia's civil population according to the South Ossetian independence referendum with 95.2% of the population participating in the referendum." - this sentence is misleading. It should be mentioned that 99% of South Ossetia's current ethnically Ossetian civil population supported it, but not the total, because ethnically Georgians (earlier mentioned comprising 20% of total pop.) have either boycotted it or were unable to vote. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 02:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That is because Geogaria is still de jure owner of those land. BTW referendum in Russian occupied area is famoous unreliable. Ask a question: Why don't North Ossetia break away from Russia? --Kittyhawk2 (talk) 02:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This is off the point. The sentence above in the background needs to be more specific, otherwise it is misleading. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 03:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we all saw how well that worked for The Chechans...--Jakezing (talk) 03:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not responding to Alsandro. Why edit/move my word here?--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 04:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Recommended reading on the historical background: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4498709.ece

Pls be careful when editing

When editing do not move one's text from one section to another. That will mislead the reader or create confusion--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 04:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Then don't put your edits above older ones.--Jakezing (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

the georgian president ran from the press

"He looked up and ran like crazy, his body guards chased him down and tackled him down and covered him with a vest "Bronijelet"."

http://www.1tv.ru/news/ (3 movie on the left)

I think that this is important to mention that Georgian President loose his minds.

1 or 2 russian jets flew over him. I've read reports that 1 of them was shot down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.30.253 (talk) 02:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

no jets flew neither over him not over nobody. The city was peacefull and everybody else just continue to walk around, Please see the video. Only Sobakashvilli ran away for no reason

Do you have any proof for your words ?

I'm pretty sure the president said it himself. I'm not gonna go look for a video of it. Also do you have anything to prove otherwise?

This is total BS--Jakezing (talk) 03:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

”Also Monday, Saakashvili had to run for cover during a visit to the town of Gori, where scores of people were killed in a Russian attack Saturday. The Associated Press reported that a member of his security team shouted, "Cover him!" as the Georgian president spoke to reporters next to his sport utility vehicle. Saakashvili was torn away by bodyguards and pushed to the ground. They piled extra flak jackets on top of him. Fearing an air raid, onlookers fled, looking skyward and screaming. No jets were seen or heard.” http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/11/georgia.president/index.html ( fixed link, sorry )Iphelgix (talk) 05:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russian places attacked big militaly base in Gori, the one which supplied guns and amo for war. Amo warehouse was located too close to the civilian buildings and explosion of amo warehouse caused some damage of surrounding houses. Also, there are multiple sources claims what georgains then staged fake photos for Reuters just to claim multiple causultes (same "dead" persons appears in different places in different clothes) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimetc (talk • contribs) 18:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russian dead

It was agreed that Russian dead are 21+18=39 It was changed to 39, but changed back. Could it be changed to 39 again, if not, then why not?

Your comment is an example of what is wrong with this article. Before the war is even over, you want all the details about the dead. You also want to publish details about what happened. Why not wait until the facts come out instead of speculating. If we had to believe everything on TV the whole of Georgia would be under Russian communist rule and the whole of Ossettia would have been wiped out. Just have patience.196.38.218.24 (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)DawnTreader

UN and Russia

Apparently, the UN has accepted Russia has invaded Georgia Proper, can we put this in there? Attilavolciak07 (talk) 02:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, source pls.--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 02:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Kittyhawk2. With a standing army of over 1 million i would think the international community would be very friggin carefull on how they worded something like that. A confirmed invasion would mean that the UN would have an obligation to take more action than they currently are. Even if we all realise that this is an invasion (not saying it is), the UN would dance around actually announcing it untill they had absolutely no other option.... I think we're all agreed this could get much messier than it already is.210.215.75.4 (talk) 03:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

standing army of one million, agaisnt, the world? makes perfect sence that russia would piss even more countries off with more invasion. Beleive me, russia isn't in the stronger position here. --Jakezing (talk) 03:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is the source http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_re_eu/un_georgia_russia Attilavolciak07 (talk) 06:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It says that the UN agree that Russia have overstepped their original mandate as laid out by the CIS, and the Georgian delegate stated that it was an invasion. Nowhere did it say the UN called it an invasion although I see how you got there. It would seem that the UN are leaving a little wiggle room so that things can be settled down but that's my opinion.Andrew's Concience (talk) 06:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I should be enough to say that UN admit that is de-facto invasion but try to keep diplomatic reservation and save face. When added into main article, Background and explanation should be made.--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 13:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please put into article that it was Russia who requested security council to hold emergency session on the 7th of August after Georgia started the attack, but before Russian troops were moved into the S.Ossetia. Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7546639.stm Lucidlook (talk) 08:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Number of Georgian Troops recalled from Iraq

Hi, I noticed that thew stated number of recalled troops from Iraq is listed as 1,000 and lacks a citation. In fact, 2000 troops have finished being airlifted back by the U.S. as reported by the Pentagon (see Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_russia_georgia ) Just an fyi for anyone interested in updating the information. 207.7.179.62 (talk) 03:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what the correct number is; however, this would appear to be a contradictory source that confirms that 1000 troops have been withdrawn (Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSL8127046), although the figure may have changed since Friday. Begoner (talk) 05:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This is merely outdated information. After hostilities commenced it was initially reported that Georgia was recalling half their contingent of troops stationed in Iraq. As of the 11th, US Air Force was assisting in transporting the entire contingent back to Georgia ( AP http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/08/ap_georgia_flyinghome_081008/ ). I'll see if I can dig up sources on the intial reports of 1k troops being recalled. Iphelgix (talk) 05:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe they initially called back half of their troops, a thousand. Then later on it was reported that they've called all two thousand troops back. Naurmacil (talk) 11:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sources, what is right, which is wrong?

Ok, we have Russia And Georgia Giving Opposite Reports, and the majority of the news are following with georgia. But, are they right? We can't really trust even foreign news because either they are following the russian statement of the georgian statements, so, who are we using, really, the only people that can be trusted is anybody who has contacts on the inside, and officals not in the sides.

The question is, canm we trust the sources to be true?--Jakezing (talk) 03:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In situations like this I believe simply stating the reports of each side and identifying the origin of the reports would be sufficent. From what I've seen in other articles, sources conflict all the time. Just state what each side is reporting and be done with it. If it falls within the wiki-guidelines, no reason not to post both sides of the story. 207.7.179.62 (talk) 04:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but in those other articles, did it have to do with a war where one side says the other did something and the other side says it didn't? The question is, gori didnt fall, russia said that, but earler, georgia said it did, and the sources fklew to that, so we went on that, but that turned to not be true. So, we have a problem where neither source can be trusted to be true. showing both sides or sayiong "supposedly" dosn't work either--Jakezing (talk) 04:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, the best thing to do would be to stick to the guidelines as closely as possible. I think that any report by either side that gets into a more independent news source should be considerd OK to post. Since it's a current event, information is as likely to change as the wind. So, I guess if it makes it onto something like Yahoo, MSNBC, etc, it should be worth posting (from what I've seen, they list reports from both sides too). What we say here won't really stop others from posting conflicting reports anyway. 207.7.179.62 (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We have to be on guard though. For example, the claim of a Russian thrust to Tbilisi in earnest seems Georgian propaganda through and through. Even US sources say their on-hands intelligence suggests it's a wholesale fabrication. And why should US sources cover up a full-scale Russian invasion? But the Georgian claims were passed on as truth in many media reports; funnily US media seem to be a bit more trustworthy than British and German ones. So we must cross-check the existing text against new bits of information. See the Battle of Tskhinvali discussion - a lot of claims, a lot of sources. But it all reeks a bit. Wikipedia SOP "cite first, think about truth later" fails utterly here.

For instance, I just fixed some stuff in the August 11 section: first, you get independent confirmation that Gori is devoid of any troops. Then you get blitzed like Poti with claims how the Russians are preparing for an assault on Tbilisi from the just-captured Gori, and that "Georgia has been cut in half" and so on. In the August 12 section, the fact that Gori has been vacated by Georgian troops gets confirmed again, but also that the Russians have not advanced either and that US intelligence data (and they have their guys on the ground, presumably even still in Gori) does not indicate such an invasion at all. So we end up with a block of text that is a propaganda broadcast pure and simple, all nicely verified with sources.

BTW, the Black Sea Fleet DOES have at least 2 Ropucha LSTs (Azov and one RopI) off the Abchazian coast (Al J had a video; good job guys, I love you too). So any claims of an amphibious assault on Poti cannot be dismissed out of hand. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I can say it's very calm now here in Tbilisi. And I didn't hear any planes during the night. Maybe there are less traffic than usual though. Carl Bildt will stay here the whole day and aren't scheduled to leave until tomorrow, so I don't think anything will happen here now. I heard he even wanted to go to Gori to check himself. The French were evacuated tonight and those Swedes who want to leave today for Yerevan. I'm staying though. Narking (talk) 05:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Numbers of "freelancers" seem to be increasing on both sides; I have an unconfirmed report on yet another new merc unit active in W Georgia since last evening. The Russians might be unwilling and the Georgians unable to restrain those as fight on the respective side. If things come to shambles, many mercs will flock to Tbilisi for egress (no government structure = no pay). Take care. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC

That's un-cited though. And I doubt many mercenary companies would keep any kind of reputation if they bailed at the fist sign of danger. More likeley the company has already been paid for having their opperatives in place for a set amount of time.

oops i forgot the squiggly thingsAndrew's Concience (talk) 05:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Nah, that was just for Narking the Brave ;-) Maybe it's useful info down there, IONO. From what I hear, many mercs are half-mercs half-volunteers, like the guys who went to the Balkans en masse 10 years ago. More unconfirmed info below. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 08:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

External links

I noticed that the external links contain two websites relating to the Polish President. http://www.president.pl/x.node?id=479 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Republic_of_Poland . Isn't this confusing. What do these two Polish links have to be with the Georgian - South Ossetian conflict? werldwayd (talk) 05:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Might be an error, someone grabbing the wrong link. Polish and Baltic states gov'ts are the only committed allies of Saakashvali these days. And Kaczynski(sp?) is their spolesman. So there might be a press release or something. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It's probably because the President of Poland is hosting some web content for Georgia due to their servers being unreliable. See the lower-right of the first link. -- SCZenz (talk) 05:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI, Polish government provided temporary domains to Georgian Govt websites, while there were hacked. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 05:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually as of now, the Georgian Presidency has a perfectly working site at http://www.president.gov.ge/ English version here: http://www.president.gov.ge/?l=E&m=0&sm=0 werldwayd (talk) 05:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Alsandro we have no proof that any cyberwarfare has taken place unless i'm mistaken. It could just be server overload. I know poland increased power allocation to georgia though so why not web support?Andrew's Concience (talk) 05:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I took the liberty of editing out the Polish website because if was generally for the president with only a hint of Georgia info. If need be that article should be sourced for something within this wikisite, but the whole Polish website as an external link is unnecessary. I also added the Georgian Presidency. And just for reference there already is an external links section in the archives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2008_South_Ossetia_war/Archive_5#external_links Lihaas (talk) 06:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The referenced President of Poland website provides links to Georgian messages stored on Polish official servers, ans explains that:

"On request of the President of Georgia, President of the Republic of Poland has provided the website of the President of Poland for dissemination of information. [...] Communiquès have been published on the website www.president.pl without any changes in their content introduced by us, in the form delivered by the sender." Cyberwarfare or not, this assistance is a real event and much more than "only a hint of Georgia info". Therefore the references should stay. Also, the Georgian infos from this website may be useful for Wikipedia as a source (at least temporary) on the Georgian version of events, e.g. this Timeline by 11th of August 19.30. The official website of the President of Georgia is not accessible at the moment, contrary to the "perfectly working" claim above. 132.68.72.110 (talk) 11:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

GRU Spetsnaz

Please do not place Vostok, Zapad and Spetsnaz of 45th Regiment under any other unit except GRU itself. GRU is under direct commandment of Russian General Staff, it's submission order is not geographically based. Vostok and Zapad do not belong to North Caucasian Military district, nor to 58th Army or any other. 45th Regiment does not commanded by Moscow Military District commanders. Etc. Let's keep that in fact. Placing they under any other Russian units is big mistake. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 06:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

WSJ

Please add reference to a Wall Street Journal article by Saakashvili and its discussion in the Opinion Journal Forum there: http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=3644 —Preceding unsigned comment added by ACrush (talk • contribs) 06:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

A reference for what? It's just his blog stating what we mostly know already made specifically from his point of view, with 4 comments from people who dissagree.Andrew's Concience (talk) 06:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

«Russian paramilitary troops» don't exist

«Russian paramilitary troops cross into Georgian territory» under photo with BRDM-2 on it is completely wrong. Russia don't have any paramilitary units. (06:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

What are Spetznaz if not paramilitary? Perhaps there is a misunderstanding on what a paramilitary unit is? If so do a search on "Paramilitaries" on this site and it should fill you in. Please don't think i'm being rude of confrontational, I'm merely trying to correct you.Andrew's Concience (talk) 07:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Spetsnaz of GRU (which is acting there) has military status. But Spetsnaz of Ministry of Internal Affairs (so called OMON - Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya) is paramilitary, they have not military status, but there is no OMON in Georgia... So... :-) --Alexander Widefield (talk) 07:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And as I know, according to Russian laws, paramilitaries, including Internal troops and Spetsnaz of Ministry of Internal Affairs, cannot be sent outside the territory of Russian Federation. Actually, there is nobody of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Georgia. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 07:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it is some mistranslating, but in Russian «paramilitary units» means «just a bunch of armed men». No military oath and ranks but they can wear a uniform some sort. On the photo I can see ordinary soldiers, not special forces. They rear guard of petrol tankers column. And, by the way, it don't look like they crossing border of Georgia. Where is this picture taken? (Namenlos Ein (talk) 07:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Spetsnaz are not "paramilitary" (the "spets" kinda gives it away...). But look at the ORBAT, on the Russian side there are many hundreds of "irregulars" (that's probably what is meant here). Are these guys cossacks perchance? "Irregular troops fighting for Russia" or "Cossack/Armenian/whatnot volunteers fighting for Russia" and "moving south from North/South Ossetia" might be more accurate. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 07:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Irregulars and Paramilitaries are not the same. Paramilitaries is regular but without military status. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 08:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

My point precisely. My first thought on seeing the photo was "irregulars", not "paramilitaries"... now whom do we have here?". (Much of the S Ossetian "regular" forces could conceivably be termed "paramilitaries".) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Air defense drills

Russia has begun carrying out air defense drills in southern Russia. [17] [18] JCDenton2052 (talk) 07:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Allegations of complete demolition of Tskhinvali are strongly overstated

This is a request to some more experienced Wiki editor: Please consider adding this information to this website, as I am not experienced. A Polish well known and respected war correspondent Wojciech Jagielski reached Tskhinvali two days ago, and, according to his report, the claims that Tskhinvali was totally devastated (which also appear on this Wiki website) are strongly overstated. In this article: http://wyborcza.pl/1,75477,5574360,Rosja_wziela_Osetie.html Jagielski writes (in original): "Widziane ze wzgórz na przedmieściach Cchinwali nie sprawia wrażenia zrównanego z ziemią. Wysokie domy w śródmieściu są osmalone dymem z pożarów, ale stoją. Niskie domostwa rozrzucone wśród zielonych, dojrzewających sadów na niewysokich wzgórzach są nietknięte, choć całkowicie wymarłe." My amateur's translation of this passage follows: "Tskhinvali seen from the hills at its suburbs, does not yield impression to be pulled down to earth. High houses in the city center are charred by smoke from fires, but they are standing. Low homesteads scattered around green, ripening orchards on low-lying hills are untouched, though totally emptied." Please whoever speaks Polish, confirm the veracity of this passage and my translation. I believe that this witness' report is very important for the verification of claims of the Russian and Ossetian side about an alleged complete demolition of Tskhinvali. (129.206.32.243 (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

I wish I could translate this. I'd also like to see any more references on this, because as far as I know this is the first report denying the destruction of Tskhinvali that wasn't from a Georgian sourceAndrew's Concience (talk) 07:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Jagielski is now extensively reporting from areas between Tskhinvali and Gori. Unfortunately, this mainstream Polish newspaper is only in Polish, and I have no watch-dog possibilities. Please note, that Jagielski did not write that Tskhinvali is not touched at all - he wrote that the devastation does not seem to be severe. (129.206.32.243 (talk) 07:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Can we get a neutral-party source? It's certainly not impossible and certianly parts of the town are liable to be still intact (it's the Georgian airforce and not the Russian, Chinese or USAF after all...). But the photo some reporter snapped in what was said to be a hospital basement shortly post facto looked pretty grim. A Polish sorce cannot be taken as neutral at face value in this war. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 07:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I see already 2 claims from the Russian newspapers, certainly non-NPOV at face value, in a relevant passage in Wiki: "Tskhinvali is reported to be lying in ruins, and more than ten border villages have reportedly also been burnt to the ground as of August 9[207][208]". I don't see any logical obstacle against adding that there _also_ exist other reports which contradict this. This is the eyewitness' report in the mainstream newspaper - IMHO it's not meaningless (129.206.32.243 (talk) 08:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Yeah, if the Russian sources are there claiming one thing then the Polish sources are more then welcome by my standards of neutrality as long as both are stated as such. A claim by a Russian journalist. A claim by a South Ossetian spokesperson. A claim by a Polish journalist. Etc. I'm sure eventually there will be a conclusion but if thats the best info available use it. Oh and perhaps people should look into the translation of the Russian press etc. How well does "totally destroyed" for example translate from Russia. Perhaps devastation translates to "totally destroyed" or w/e. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.140.247 (talk) 12:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no perfectly neutral source. In such a situation anyone can be (and usually is, and often with some truth to it) accused of bias. If "a Polish sorce cannot be taken as neutral at face value in this war", so cannot be an American, French, or Italian one. Still, they are usually more neutral that Russian, Ossetian, Abkhazian or Georgian sources. Also notice this is a journalist eyewitness report and not a govt statement. It seems an important report, but of course not a final word on the issue. 132.68.72.110 (talk) 13:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Poland is Georgia's paladin here. See the "International reactions" page for some verbatim quotes. The bottom line is: there is a pressing need for the Polish government to fight the claim that anything ugly has happened in Tskhinvali at all. Because if there had, this would make someone very high up in the Georgian gov't guilty of war crimes. And sticking with war criminals would weaken Poland's standing in NATO and EU. After all, if any single government has given Saakashvali a "go ahead we're backing you to the end", it was that of Poland. What would be valuable would be a Polish source that says "the Russians claims are right". Polish sources that whitewash Tbilisi are a dime a dozen these days. 15:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand that, for you, if the Polish government took sides with Georgia, it means that every Polish journalist also did. From your post I understand that what this journalist wrote as the eyewitness must be automatically a lie. Despite that it is okay to treat tens of Russian sources on this web page as free from such accusations. And despite the fact that there is freedom of press in Poland. And your view is of course NPOV...

According to this article from The Independent, the place looked "pulverized". Maybe you can use both sources together. OelnJa (talk) 14:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I would support it, please whoever edits this article, use both. Please notice that the 1st sentence of the article 0e1nJa refers to, points to both parties as responsible ones for the destruction, while the whole "Humanitarian impact" section leaves an impression, as if mostly the Georgian side would be responsible. Although the sentence in Wiki about a destruction of Tskhinvali does not blame any specific party, many of preceding sentences do so, and the reader may extrapolate the convincement of the mainly Georgian guilt for the destruction of Tskhinvali. (129.206.32.243 (talk) 14:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Scrap the GW article I'd rather. There are presently no supporting sources, but a handful of sources from Russian and Western reporters alike that completely contradict its implications.

Jagielski is the only sorce giving the implression (though stopping short of actually saying so, at least in the quoted passage) Ts. is largely intact
He didn't even get to town, but take a peek from the hills (Is he an embedded correspondent with the Georgian forces perchance?)
So the closest distance between him and what he was reporting on was (as per Google Earth, and being kind) 1 mile. Probably more like two or three, since the hills closest to town were not a safe place for a reporter to be at that time. Did he use binoculars?

OTOH,

AFP, The Independent, perhaps Reuters correspondents confirm the bottom line of the Russian version.
They report from downtown
The closest distance between them and what they report on is a few inches.

But the "2,000 daed" seems to be an exaggeration also. Supposedly there are Russian sources now speaking of much less dead, dozens maybe.

In short, Jagielski does not make a counter-claim to the reports of widespread destruction. His claim is not "I've been there and seen it's not true", but "from far away it looks like there has been only a little fighting". Note the quote does not give any about the interesting things: the state of low-rise residential areas adjacent to what does as downtown there. (Without binos, would it be possible see any details from where he stood?)

BUT: the "pastoral elysium" bit (cottages and orchards) in informative. It can be taken to mean that any Georgian attacks have been restricted to the town proper, and that the outlying villages have not seen fighting. For for THAT we have no contradicting information either.

So taken as a whole the source is essentially worthless. If we compare point for point against other sources it may even be highly useful. It could be used like this: "Jagielski, reporting from the hills a few km from downtown saw high-rises still standing, but charred with smoke from fires. At least some of the outlying villages did not seem to have seen any combat at all, though the residents apparently fled or were hiding."

Jagielski is doing nothing worse than shirking from going into a war zone contianing possibly lots of UXO submunitions, and by not going there getting a report that will raise smiles in the Pałac. But even the most propagandistic sources do often have factual information that is interesting. Observation needs to be separated from analysis, incident needs to be separated from incident. Each can then be corroborated separately.

It's like with science articles, biomedicine etc. News releases will have all sorts of overblown "possible future cure for cancer/AIDS/halitosis/common cold" claims, essentially to self-market. What we science editors like to do with essentially amounts to a commercial presentation is simply to leave that aside or maybe add a throwaway line, and focus on the actual data in the actual peer-reviewed publications: write what is seen, not what is conjectured. Or conjecture all you want, but do not use it to prove anything or falsify anything. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 15:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please look carefully at the video from the 1st link after the sentence currently published in Wiki:http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28690/video , as of Aug 9. Don't you see any contradiction between the Ossetian statements broadcasted there that 70% of the city is "lying in ruins" and the pictures (from the Russian source!) showing most of the buildings stay not in rubble, although some in fire? IMHO the Russian pictures confirm what Jagielski later reports: smoke yes, complete pulldown of the city - no, at least at those days. Please also don't allege Jagielski to be a propagandist without stating any reason. He is a war correspondent with at least 15 years experience and witnessed tens of conflicts from Chechnya to Afghanistan via Africa. He wrote books about what he saw. The fact that he is Polish should not by any mean be automatically used to suggest that he works for Government. Please note, that we have freedom of journalism in Poland.(129.206.32.243 (talk) 16:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

I don't mean to implicate any dubious dealings on his behalf; he's still a human being, that's all. I mean, what yould you do if you were a Polish reporter there? What would I do? Get good copy from a safe distance, or risk your life to file a report that is liable to get the spike anyway and might run risk to get you fired for backstabbing your government (the "Potato Affair comes to mind, there the Kaczinskys called for censoring a journalist not even under their jurisdiction for slander, and Carlos Rivera certainly knows what I mean ;-) ). Also if I were a Polish war correspondent, I can think of better things than getting close to Ossetian fighters (which basically seem to run Tskhinvali as they please at present). For any Ossetian who had the leisure to follow international reactions, Poland is The Enemy too.

Sorry I have to disagree with your argumentation. I don't understand your allegation that journalists associated with Gazeta Wyborcza might fear any reaction from the President. GW has 20-years account of fighting with ink with right-wing parties and their representatives (e.g. president Kaczynski) and I heard of no case of threatening their journalists to a degree that anyone would start performing auto-censorship. This journalist is known to perform dangerous missions, eg. according to his book "Modlitwa o deszcz" ("Prayer for rain") he visited Afghanistan 13 times at times of Shah Massud and Taliban's governance, as well as to write his "Wieże z kamienia" ("Towers of stone") he was hiding over a month inside Grozny after the 2nd Chechnya's war. By no means this was a task for cowards. In the article I posted above, he gives a reasonable (IMO) explanation why he did not report from the inside of Tskhinvali: "na rogatkach Cchinwali wpadliśmy pod ogień osetyjskich partyzantów." ("by the tollgates of Tskhinvali we fell under fire of Ossetian partizans"). So what he reports was opposite to your "I can think of better things than getting close to Ossetian fighters"... Also another GW journalist, Tomasz Bielecki, is reporting the hardship of the Ossetian refugees from the North Ossetian area. this. Refugees also speak there about Georgian army shelling and their hiding in basements of tenements. Such articles are certainly not what president Kaczynski would be satisfied to hear.(147.142.162.86 (talk) 19:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

"What does the assumption that "for any Ossetian (...) Poland is The Enemy" prove with respect to veracity of Jagielski's account?" Nothing at all, it's abnout scope not truth.

Sorry, I misunderstood your message here, and later excluded this question from my post.(147.142.162.86 (talk) 20:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

He could have gone downtown where as far as we can say based on what other reporters have told he would have gotten a somewhat different picture - basically a town that had suffered some major damage and was for all purposes uninhabitable for the time being, as basic services were out. But if he went downtown, he would have risked his life, only to see things and report on things that probably would not sit well with his bureau anyway. So he stayed put and delivered some good material. Material that perhaps gives a remote and therefore sub-optiomal view on things downtown, but OTOH reports on things in the outskirts, about which the reporters downtown did not tell us anything.

As I see you seem to continue alleging that one of reasons of Jagielski's lack of reporting from the inside of Tskhinvali was the allegiance to his bureau. Please really don't create unverifiable POV-type assumptions. I wrote already above some indications of the independence of an alleged "bureau's policy" of Tomasz Bielecki's articles, who is a long-standing GW's journalist. I also pointed to 2 Jagielski's books where there is enough proofs that looking overall, this journalist takes a lot of risk for his work. I can only repeat myself, that in the referred article Jagielski states the reason of not getting inside the city that he came under fire from the Ossetian side. That means (basing on his article) that he tried to get there and was physically barred by shelling, and not that he retreated because of balancing pros and cons in advance. Also, concerning "reports on things in the outskirts" - please read once more "Wysokie domy w śródmieściu są osmalone dymem z pożarów, ale stoją." (High houses in the city center are charred by smoke from fires, but they are standing.) He looks from a distance, but (at least claims to be able to) see the overall view of the city center. This is quite contradictive to the claim published for all the day by Wikipedia "Tskhinvali is reported to be lying in ruins". Not "lying". Ruins - if any - then partial.(147.142.162.86 (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

I would advise treating any "70% reduced to rubble" claims with the same prejudice as hilltop observations. Like I said, it is better to focus on the specifics than to simply echo remote analyses. The OSCE headquarters for example apparently was gutted by fire, the hospital and the cemetary destroyed etc. For that, there is credible evidence from Western reporters seing it close by. As is for the fact that a good number of buildings were still standing and appear to be quite intact indeed after the Georgian assault ended; for that there is evidence by Russian reporters. Gross claims and counterclaims not based on detailed on-the-site observation are perhaps better mved to the infowar/propaganda section?

I really don't object the presence of claims other than Jagielski's report and if you followed my posts, please note that even warned someone that Jagielski did not claim that Tskhinvali was not touched. But if Wikipedia has already something to say about demolitions in Tskhinvali (and it does-for the whole day the sentence of "lying in ruins" stays there intact), let it do it in a balanced way, basing on a sample of available reports. IMO Jagielski's eyewitness report is 1) relevant and 2) quite consistent with the Russian video footage I posted above. I really don't see the reason of excluding it from the sample of reports. Why not agreeing to a sentence "there exists another eyewitness' report stating that as of Aug 10, the assumption of lying in ruins is strongly overstated"? At least two accounts support it, one even Russian.(147.142.162.86 (talk) 19:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

(I have not seen any solid evidence of the "black mercenaries" either. As some might know, chorniy "black" in northern Russia is derogatory slang for Caucasians (ironically). So in Russian, the claim has an additional twist, "blacks fighting for the 'blacks'". As it was originally reported, it might have been close to a pun or witticism actually.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As a Polish speaker I confirm. The city is described as standing an with no sign of devestation. It was a en element of Russian propaganda war against Georgia.--Molobo (talk) 19:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please note that Jagielski indeed reports about signs of devastation: "Wysokie domy w śródmieściu są osmalone dymem z pożarów" ("High houses in the city center are charred by smoke from fires"). His claim is that he did not see from the hills any overall picture of complete or severe demolition, as claimed by the Ossetian and Russian side those days.(147.142.162.86 (talk) 20:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Verifiability of foreign-language sources: Wikipedia's core policy

A reminder of Wikipedia's policy on controversial foreign-language sources:

Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, editors should use English-language sources in preference to sources in other languages, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly. Where editors use a non-English source to support material that others are likely to challenge, or translate any direct quote, they need to quote the relevant portion of the original text in a footnote or in the article, so readers can check that it agrees with the article content. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors.

WP:V is a core policy and material which fails to comply may be deleted. --Folantin (talk) 07:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh... there will be so many footnotes... Article will be twice larger than it is. May be, one may post a direct link to Google Translate result for the url near the references? --Alexander Widefield (talk) 07:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. Google machine translation is notoriously inaccurate. Besides: "Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors". Moreover, "editors should use English-language sources in preference to sources in other languages". --Folantin (talk) 07:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There are at least 100 Russian sources used in this article. Attempting to delete them and all of the info they present would be unreasonable and unhelpful. If you find something questionable, either use one of many internet translating tools (they work well enough to get the gist of things), or bring it up on the talk page and see if you can get one of the presumably many Russian editors to help you out. LokiiT (talk) 07:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Google translation I can mark as B in most cases. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 08:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Google translation is mostly crap. I know because I've had to deal with machine-translated articles on this encyclopaedia. Verifiability is a core policy which is listed at the top of this talk page. Everybody who speaks English (this is Wikipedia.en) should be able to check on the reliability of controversial claims. --Folantin (talk) 08:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That policy that only english sources are valid sux totally. It should be enough that if there is disagreement about the content of the source and google translate (or others) isn't enough then one can ask what there is said from somebody who can read that language at the time. Dropping source because the language before there is any problems is totally insane. --Zache (talk) 08:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I second this. There are not enough English-language sources unfortunately. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 08:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russian and Georgian sources can not be a reference through Google translate as it is not as reliable tool. These sources must be verified by Wikipedia editors who have strong capability in these languages. If not, we will have informations which is being closer rather than the real info. Wickfox (talk) 08:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Look at the top of the page. It clearly states Article policies: Neutral point of view, No original research, Verifiability. "There are not enough English-language sources". Not enough for what? There are plenty of English-language news sources covering this conflict. If you want to use foreign-language sources then you must comply with WP:V.--Folantin (talk) 08:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You haven't noticed that neither Russia nor Georgia (or any of neighbor either) countries aren't english speaking ones and those are kind of important news sources. There is other point of view than western=english ones too. --Zache (talk) 08:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You'd better start translating then. --Folantin (talk) 08:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

...others are likely to challenge... - Again: Dropping source because the language before there is any problems is totally insane. --Zache (talk) 09:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Virtually everything about this topic is controversial and subject to challenge. Please start complying with core policy. I have added a "Verifiability" tag to the top of the article itself so nobody can now claim they are unaware of it. --Folantin (talk) 09:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

btw, i am little bit slow today, but where you find that (links please) we should even translate stuff for refs? WP:V says that we should quote text in orig form (as in orig language) if we do direct quote or there is dispute. So if there isn't either we don't need to do even that and we can use non-english sources as same way what we are using english ones. Also saying that whole topic is controversial isn't enough for disputing specific ref. --Zache (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) "Where editors use a non-English source to support material that others are likely to challenge..." That doesn't just refer to direct quotations. "Likely to challenge" - I see a lot of editors on these talk pages challenging such material. I'm certainly going to (if I can edit the page). I'm fed up with being hoodwinked by foreign language references which are (a) unreliable and (b) do not back the claims Wikipedia editors say they do. --Folantin (talk) 10:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup, you can do so... and you have all my support to find incorrect refs, but what you can't do is invent your own rules and say that everybody else have to translate every ref ~~what there is because you just doesn't like other languages.~~ --Zache (talk) 11:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Whatever. You can continue to assume bad faith in bad English if you want. In fact, I does like foreign languages I just doesn't like them being used to pull the wool over everybody's eyes. Start translating the refs or lose them. This is the English-language Wikipedia. --Folantin (talk) 11:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

A demand for English translations is fully legitimate. However, it would be nice to avoid phrases suggesting contempt for "foreign language" references and/or contributors. E.g., "I does like" and "I just doesn't like" above seem to be unnecessary sarcasm. Also, threats of content deletion are not very helpful. 132.68.72.110 (talk) 13:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yesterday the entry was readable and informative. Today the grammar has degraded noticably. The failure to use the English language articles (a, an, the) is jarring to the reader. The Russian language doesn't use articles (from what Russians have told me), and it is obvious that people from the region are contributing when they simply lack the English skills to do so in a way that actually helps the reader. It is also obvious that the entry itself has become a propaganda war. I've never seen a page go so "bad" in a single day. It was so remarkable that it motivated me to finally create a username. Sorry to vent, but if this were the future of en.Wikipedia, it would be a short future indeed. This entry is a broth that could use a lot fewer cooks. Roger Midnight (talk) 12:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Some stats. Total count of references is increased from yesterdays 255 to todays 293. Count of non-english sources isn't really changed (around 85) but today is less russian refs than yesterday, but there is some estonian, polish, french etc refs more . --Zache (talk) 15:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the problem with Russian (or Georgian, Chinese, Quechua) -language references? If someone has any doubts wrt to a particular foreign-language reference he or she can always bring this issue up at the talkpage. After that these doubts will either be confirmed or refuted and most likely someone will also find an English-language source to replace the foreign-language one (if it's possible, that is). Alæxis_¿question? 17:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I imagine the problem is that the READER will want references in the language they've chosen. They often want to delve deeper into a particular point, or (especially when the isuue has devolved into a propaganda war) verify it. Regardless of the fact that the talkpage can hash this stuff out, it is important that references are useful to the READERS.Roger Midnight (talk) 22:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Consider the position of readers

This is not up to those writers to decide who is accurate and who is inaccurate. This is up to reader to decide. Most Reader cannot decide it when it is minority Language. I don't mind personally if it is Chinese, how about you?This is not about edit war, think about it.--Kittyhawk2 (talk) 13:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Humanitarian impact section - split off into a new article?

The article size is 150kb now, and this section is quite big alone. I think we should leave the key points in there, and split the rest off to new articles, i.e. Humanitarian impact of the 2008 South Ossetia war in South Ossetia (not a good title name I know, but we can discuss that). D.M.N. (talk) 07:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:Wojna w gruzji war in georgia.gif

I will remove the map from the article. First of all, it's in Polish. Secondly, it's strongly POV. The title states "Russian aggression against Georgia" Óðinn (talk) 07:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV dispute: Propaganda War

Naurmacil removed my previous edit and explained: "remove war propaganda - a UK source claims they're fighting propaganda. What makes you think the UK source isn't propaganda itself? It's unlikely, but it's purely POV."

So what is not a propaganda? However, please notice that both sides accuses "the other side" of using propaganda. So it is clear that at least one side uses propaganda, then it is enough to talk about a propaganda war. In addition it was UK website of Reuters. Reuters is not a reliable source? Please answer. I decided to rewrite it a bit and added again.

Besides, it would be great to extend the 'information warfare' paragraph because today it is almost as important as real warfare. Kieraf (talk) 16:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

One more note to Propaganda Section. Georgian President Saakashvili is often appealing to Georgian in English, while the only official language in Georgia is Georgian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vadimkaa (talk • contribs) 23:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Is that correct? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 08:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

No, my argument that propaganda is impossible to know. Both sides accuse the other of propaganda. So basically its meaningless. Is it notable? Maybe. But worth mentioning at all? I think not. Naurmacil (talk) 11:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like original research to me. Oxygen (believe) 13:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

At last I saw it on TV by myself. I will try to find these speaches on BBC or CNN websites. By the way, other guys also noticed this The first press conference I saw with Saakashvili, I was impressed with his manner of remaining cool considering what was going on. I thought it odd that he was speaking English. I understand that he had an American education and all, but it seems he would have been speaking to the people of Georgia, not English speakers around the world. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread380620/pg1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vadimkaa (talk • contribs) 14:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The immense opposition on Russia on this war is notable

E verybody is denouncing Russia in this war, worth mentioning the intro?? It's blatantly obvious that if we had to shun aynbody here, it's unarguably Russia. The rest of the world can see this, that's why they're denouncing Russia. Should we include the notable opposition to Russia in this war in the intro or no? Hellothar999 (talk) 04:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course not, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. International reactions should be mentioned in either an international reactions section or a separate article on international reactions in accordance with consensus. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we have to shun unarguable genocide of Ossetian people by Georgian government? Don't we? --eugrus (talk) 10:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Human Rights Watch, EU and even NATO aren't denouncing Russia. Nor is the UN - actually, it was Russia who went to the UN first. That was before Georgia got its ass kicked and had to beg for peace, no disrespect to the Georgians. Most countries stayed neutral. In fact, the only countries really denouncing Russia are the United States and Israel - both countries have trained Georgian troops, so not a surprise. Canada recently joined in. Cuba condemned the United States. Italy, surprisingly for a U.S. ally, is pro-Russia. The French and German governments have also given statements supporting Russia's right to intervene, but have called for peace. Chinese media here are also overwhelmingly on the side of Russia, even though Sino-Russian relations aren't that good. We tend to have a pretty neutral opinion for both the U.S. and Russia here in China. So, it certainly is not "everybody" denouncing Russia. I wonder where you get your news from. Naurmacil (talk) 11:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Beg to differ, categorically in one point. The US reaction is rather mixed, PotUS and VP are strongly pro-Saakashvali while a few rungs town the ladder people are basically thinking "oh that IDIOT". Israel's first reaction actually was to deny Georgia any form of substantial military support (the usual reaction of many people, if Israel is concerned, is "they do it covertly". But for a small country doing something covertly amounts to doing little of substance at all. If I ever become podunk semi-authoritarian president of something, I will not have my troops trained by Israel. It is a pointless waste of money if you rush into a war headlong.).

100% pro-Georgia are the gov'ts: Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Denmark.

For the most part strongly pro-Georgia but with significant dissatisfaction especially in the rank and file are the govt's: US, UK

(Probably) strongly pro-Georgia but generally not making a big issue of it are the govt's of: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine

The rest of NATO/OSCE govt's is basically wishing it all would go away (I expected Berlusconi to be outspoken, but he isn't)

The rest of the world govt's is basically like "Drek! A tragedy! This has to stop!" and then going on with whatever they were doing. If they considered it notable enough at all.

Israel is actually far more uncommitted than I expected them to be. As it seems, Georgia is meaningless to them except as a customer of bang-bang. (Israel has to keep relations with Russia at least lukewarm because of that Iran thing. Might be a major point) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

More stuff, partly sourced

Some info from http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/08/200881241938917173.html sources for the rest will likely pop up on some Web news in the near future. The general picture is one of calm in the center, heat in the west.

Probably Russian (Marines?) force recon on Poti (both sides agree Russian troops are/were there). Landing force likely to have included 1 Ropucha II , at least 1 Ropucha I. The Bora class hovercraft is apparently also stationed off Abkhazia. The big squadron has returned to Novorossiysk, no? (I got the naval details from the Al J video here. Dunno where footage was taken. Compare Black Sea Fleet)
Russian airborne troops probably control Senaki army base, 3 battalions airbornes + 2,500 "peacekeepers" present around SE Abkhazia frontierline.
Russian capture of Zugdidi plausible but possibly still unconfirmed (I am not sure at all whether I have ever seen a robust source say so).
Apparently Georgia has retracted claim of Russian taking of Gori in the night.
What goes at Kareli? According to the Polish map, another frontiertown Russia might be interested to take to prevent "future Georgian troop concentrations" (or however they call it)
Russia badmouths UNSC proposal, Kouchner due in Moscow later. Apparently Kremlin will inter alia make a Kosovo Redux case.
Abkhazian "MoD" announces start of Kodori offensive. (Huh? They took their time, no?)

Battle seems to have been joined in Kodori Valley. Abkhazian/Russian jets bomb Georgian positions, artillery & infantry exchange voluminous fire Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 08:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we have an "International Reaction" from India? (Any witticisms from Caracas, while I'm asking?) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 08:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russian airstrikes on Gori, or possibly mainly on Georgian artillery positions in the surroudings. "Some wounded civilians" in Gori apparently. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 08:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When I saw my local Cable TV (Can cantonese media which is not online be cited as a source? I think not) I reported that Gori is once fallen. --Kittyhawk2 (talk) 13:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russians "finished" now?

The BBC is reporting now that President Medvedev has ordered an end to the Russian "operation" in Georgia...that almost certainly does not signal an intention to pull out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but perhaps may indicate that there is no intention to press further into Georgia "proper?" See link: BBC article —Preceding unsigned comment added by The paccagnellan (talk • contribs) 09:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Most definitely, Georgia withdrew from the Kodori Gorge and South Ossetia. They're now under Russian control. Mission accomplished, all your breakaway states are belong to Russia.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 09:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

is their any links about on the Kodori Gorge? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.12.186 (talk) 10:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Someone can add this stuff to the ceasefire section if seems relevant. Lihaas (talk) 10:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Medvedev told that although "our operation completed", "we will continue destroy the aggressor [Georgians]" [19]. This does not sound as an end of an operation at all.Biophys (talk) 13:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The question is whether there ever was any plan to press into Georgia "proper". As it seems at present, no, there wasn't. Russian troops are basically idling in most places of the frontline since 20 hours or so, and the "taking" of Poti and Senaki were actually raids by marine/airborne commandos (at least for the latter also confirmed by Tbilisi, so I guess it's legit). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When discussing Abkhazia, please distinguish between Russian forces and Abkhazian ones. They have an army in their own right. For example, Russia did not send troops to Kadori, the Abkhazians did. Thanks 196.38.218.24 (talk) 14:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC) DawnTreader.

The leader of Abkhazia claims two units of 250 Abkhazia soldiers are fighting to take the gorge backed by artillery and jets of the Abkhazia airforce, Abkhazia does not have an airforce and earlier claims of it shooting down Georgian unmanned drones a few weeks ago with traning fighters were shown to be the Russian Airforce planes. AP also widely reportedly claims to have counted 150 Russian armoured vehicles passing them towards the Abkhazia/Georgia border so conflict in that region appears to be ongoing. WatcherZero (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Vostok Commander? What?

In 'August 12', near the end, there is an almost indecipherable paragraph about some Vostok commander, his brother, and a federal crime. Either this is not relevant or needs to be explained better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.225.236 (talk) 11:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ex-commander of Vostok - Sulim Yamadayev. At now he is federally wanted for a murder. But witness (a reporter) saw him within Vostok battalion in SO. His brother said that 215 soldiers of Vostok is under Sulim's commandment. May be he's a leader of them, i.e. de facto commander, but not officially. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

No, he is not "ex". He still commands Vostok in South Ossetia [20].Biophys (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see why that is particularly relevant to this conflict. Also, the paragraph itself has a lot of grammar problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.49.22 (talk) 15:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

All Russian sources said that he was dismissed from commandment of Vostok after declaring him of federal wanting. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 17:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Dutch journalist

A Dutch journalist named "Stan Storimans", working for the Dutch news program "RTL Nieuws", has been killed by a bombardment on Gori from the Russians.

Dutch source: http://www.rtl.nl/(/actueel/rtlnieuws/binnenland/articleview/)/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/2008/08_augustus/12/binnenland/0812_0915_RTL-journalisten_slachtoffer_Gori.xml —Preceding unsigned comment added by ADB15 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Five people including a Dutch television journalist died early today in explosions in Gori, 15 miles away from the South Ossetian border. The casualties were at first blamed on Russian fighter jets, but Russia has denied this, and TV footage appears to show that the missiles were fired not by planes but by artillery - possibly Georgian - on the hillside around Gori" - reported in Times Online here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4514202.ece (Lennie 13:05 GMT 12.08.08) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.164.117 (talk) 12:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"A Dutch cameraman was killed on Tuesday morning in an incident in Gori, the Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed. He was identified as Stan Storimans, of RTL TV. The correspondent who accompanied him was also injured. There were no immediate details about the incident." - reported by CNN at http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/12/georgia.russia.war/index.html - 24.132.60.107 (talk) 13:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If these are valid sources would it be correct to edit the main article? And could I request someone would do it in proper Wikipedia language? Thanks. 81.70.137.81 (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There have been some dead in Gori due to incoming; that much seems reliable, but the details are very sketchy. At least two attacks on the people (military and civilians) that retreated from the town seem to be confirmed, one in the outskirts which was witnessed by an Al J reporter, one in town which was implicity mentioned as having been witnessed by reporters. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Update on "casualties among journalists" section

I'm new to editing wikipedia articles, but here is an update. After seven hours of calls to the Russian Red Cross and local health care workers, I discovered that the reporters Winston Featherly and Temouri Kigouradze were transported to the Republican Hospital in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Mr. Featherly was shot in the leg and is in stable condition (I talked to him on the phone), but Mr. Kigouradze is unconscious and seriously wounded. The Russian military is guarding their hospital room, and has already "interrogated" both of them in a verbally aggressive manner.

abc Anchorage, Alaska —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anc abc (talk • contribs) 11:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Aug 12

Under Aug 12 it says "The Foreign Minister of Italy, Franco Frattini announced that Italy was ready to send troops to South Ossetia if the European Union decides to intervene on Monday." What I believe it should say is "On Monday the Foreign Minister of Italy, Franco Frattini announced that Italy was ready to send troops to South Ossetia if the European Union decides to intervene." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.30.253 (talk) 12:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Why does it say August 7th as the beginning when the fighting started on August 1st? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.139.138 (talk) 13:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Georgian losses

«Casualties and losses

Claimed by Russia:

2 helicopters lost

1 missile boat sunk»

This is incomplete list. Read this: http://www.lenta.ru/news/2008/08/11/su/ — «В Южной Осетии сбит грузинский Су-25» (Georgian Su-25 shot down in South Ossetia), near Eredvi. (Namenlos Ein (talk) 13:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

A comparison to the Russian Wikipedia

Russian Wikikpedia 2008 South Ossetia War 65.68.1.90 (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Carl Bildt: "Russia to pay a high price"

Russia's military attacks on Georgia will damage both Moscow's and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's image abroad, Sweden's Foreign secretary and Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Carl Bildt said in an interview with Swedish Radio on today. "Russia will sooner or later have to pay a high price for this," Bildt said in a telephone interview from the Georgian capital Tbilisi. "It changes Russia's image, there is no doubt about it," he said, adding that the attacks bore witness to "a strong element of revenge, particularly from Prime Minister Putin." [21] Hapsala (talk) 14:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

More stuff (update on the above)

Black Sea Fleet action on Gori was probably indeed a force recon/search&destroy mission; it is more likely than not that Russian troops blew some stuff up and withdrew again.
Russian airborne troops had already vacated Senaki army base again as of August 11 evening. Almost 100% confirmed since Tbilisi says so; I'd say 100% but then I am not sure whether lines of communication from Senaki to Tbilisi are intact enough to be that certain.
Russian capture of Zugdidi still plausible but definitely very shaky now. Cannot be accepted at face value
Frontline at Gori apparently still a few km outside town. Towards the Russian side that is.
Claims of wholesale destruction of Tskhinvali may be premature, and

"2000 dead" is almost certainly an exaggeration. But the town was hit very hard and much of its infrastructure have been destroyed. As per AFP on-ground report, neither a hospital nor a graveyard deserving of such a name exist anymore.

Apparently at least intermittent shelling of Tskhinvali did indeed continue when the Russians said so (the area is still accessible for Georgian troops from the SE): residents claim they did not feel safe to leave their basements til Monday.

(The AFP report is probably the best and most detailed and possibly the only somewhat relaible news from South Ossetia we have for the last 24 hours). To find the report, you might try searching for "AFP" and "Nodar" (the head doctor in town and quoted in the article.)

Note: Above comment was made by User:Dysmorodrepanis at 14:23 UTC. Spencer^T♦^C 14:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

South Ossetia and Abkhazia independent ?

The following,

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are territories within Georgia that declared independence from Georgia and have been acting in a de facto independent capacity since the early 1990s. Neither state has been diplomatically recognised by any member of the United Nations. In the early 2000s, it was reported that 95% of the population in South Ossetia were Russian citizens.[25]

Doesn't mention that Russia was supporting the breakaways and that Georgia had been trying to consolidate the whole time. Don't know if this is too biased for intro. PlanetCeres (talk) 14:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have the times and dates that these people became "Russian citizens"? Was this during the "Peacekeeper" time? 65.68.1.90 (talk) 14:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

How reliable that 95% of population being Russian citizens is? Isn't like 20% of population ethnic Georgian and hasn't noitable part of territory been under Georgian control since beginning?--Staberinde (talk) 14:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Basically in the last years, if you lived there and wanted a Russian passport/citizenship, you had to go to the next Russian peacekeeper officer and he could tell you where you could get one.

Another tidbit that explains much of the last week's unclear frontlines: S Ossetia is ethnically mixed through and through. It's not like Bosnia where you could draw dividing lines. So there were Georgian troops stationed in this village and that, and Russian troops in between, and depending on which guys were stationed in a village the administration was Georgian or S Ossetian-cum-Russian. This is why one constantly kept wondering why there seemed to be scores of Georgian troops behind the Russian line of advance: there actually were.

Now Tskhinvali are under heavy artillery bombardment again!

first hand, no source except russian army: Georgian forces that was delivered by US Air Forces to Tbilisi airport begans their new attack on Tskhinvali. Russian army checking and destroying Georgian artillery positions. toxygen (talk) 14:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If that is correct, we ought to get independent confirmation within the next few hours from The Independent and AFP. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

South Ossetia and Abkhazia military build up.

The fact that South Ossetia and Abkhazia both obtained Russian weapons during the "Peacekeeper" time is not mentioned early enough. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It needs to a) go into the summary of the lead-up to the 2008 war and b) there may be source material in the general South Ossetian wars article. The degree of organization of the Russuan arms supplies is IIRC murky. It seems to have been somewhere between blackmarketeering and open sales, perhaps with a generous dose of turning a blind eye when some RPGs "fell off the back of a GAZ"... note the information the Russian military on Wikipedia is good and thoroughly sourced, that on the Georgian is, even that on the Abkhazian is. The information about the S Ossetian forces is very obscure by comparison. So I suppose the same as you do, though good sources (hard numbers) might be difficult to come by.

This could be amended by robust (picture) evidence of S Ossetian forces with post-USSR weaponry. While this does not prove the "peacekeepers" were directly involved, it would prove that they did not prevent sales of modern Russian weapons to S Ossetian forces in the last 15 years or so as they probably ought to have done, technically. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

yandex.ge hacked

Yet another georgian webiste defaced and hacked. http://www.yandex.ge/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.64.206.162 (talk) 15:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It says "Georgia stop! SAY NO TO WAR!" Also Yandex is the biggest Russian search engine, so this site, while located in Turkey, could be actually Russian. 91.203.158.3 (talk) 15:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ceasefire

Look, it over now as this shows. So, change the "result" to "Georgian attack repulsed" and "Russians hold territory in Georgia proper". Sparten (talk) 15:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflict is ongoing. No results yet to announce.Biophys (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, no reason to rush with announcing results.--Staberinde (talk) 15:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

HRW mission

Article on Russian Radio Liberty web-site about Human Rights Watch mission (Russian branch, three people) to South Ossetia: http://www.svobodanews.ru/Article/2008/08/12/20080812140328000.html

It says that it`s difficult in count civilian casualties because almost all ossetians man are participating in militia in one way way or another, so ossetians see no difference between militia man and normal citizen. So when there was militia man killed, he is always reported as civilian casualty. According to article, there are really lots of volunteers from North Ossetia and other parts of Russian Caucasus, including cossacks (they fight in ossetian militia clothes). Also noted that number of casualties by officials are probably overestimated (i.e. HRW mission found that only ~110 people were delivered to Java hospital starting from 8 august). 91.203.158.3 (talk) 15:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want certain information to be included here, please formulate exactly your statement to be included (for example, Hundreds cossacks reportedly fought in Ossetian militia clothes) and suggest the exact place where this should be included. That would help.Biophys (talk) 15:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid my English is not that good for this. It seems that this is the first independent estimate of civilian loses in South Ossetia, this topic was hot debated here, so I thought that this source could be useful. 91.203.158.3 (talk) 15:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Information on volunteers/mercenaries fighting on the Russian side and their modus operandi, level of force integration etc is always welcome.
Casualty figures can be taken verbatim, provided details like source, date, location, causalty state (dead/wounded/unspecified) is stated clearly.
I wish them all the best for their mission and a safe return! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, this article needs to be renamed

This has got to be the only place not calling this a Russia-Georgia war. There was an attack on Kodori Gorge and invasion of a large part of Georgia launched from Abkhazia. Continuing to call this the South Ossetia War ignores the very basic reality that this is a much broader conflict. While Russia does have separatist backers in the region those backers are fighting on Russia's side. The main fighting is between Russia and Georgia not only in South Ossetia but in various areas outside of South Ossetia. There is absolutely no justification for keeping this name.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think name the conflict merely a “South Ossetia War” is somehow Russian-Point-Of-View.--MaGioZal (talk) 16:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. South Ossetia may have been the starting point, but they are not even a main participant. We don't call World War I the "1914 Serbian War" even though that is where it started. --StuffOfInterest (talk) 16:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

But we do call the 1982 conflict between Israel on one hand and the PLO and later Syria on the other hand as the 1982 Lebanon War even though Lebanon was more of a battlefield as opposed to a participant.72.27.174.160 (talk) 18:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Strong disagree. This is not a war against Georgia. This is merely an operation to save South Ossetians from genocide and make sure it doesn't happen again. --Mrcatzilla (talk) 16:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Weak disagree, as of now but only because I can't think of a better name. Ultimately we do need one. "2008 (Western) Caucasus war"? The Cacuasus being what it is and 2008 being far from over, this is premature. But it is a fact that the war began when Georgia invaded territory that had been under de facto control of the S Ossetian "government" since years. It is also a fact that the war was not limited to S Ossetia for long. Either the name addresses the 4 parties directly involved, or it does not address any party at all. The latter is probably preferable, since indirectly, many more parties are involved (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Cossacks, the Baltic states... by greenlighting their citizens to go down there and fight as irregulars). But again, "the main fighting is between Russia and Georgia" is not correct - Russia bombs (or did bomb?) targets in Georgia, but the main fighting is a not-so-merry-go-around between the armed forces of 2 states, 2 state-like entities, and a pan-national irregular/mercenary component that may be as high as 5% thrown in for kicks. Dysmorodrepanis (talk)

The main fighting is very much between Russia and Georgia. While the previous wars did include operations in Georgia itself they also mainly revolved around the disputed territory. It started out looking like that was the case, but then Russia began getting involved in Abkhazia, Abkhazia began attacking with Russian military assistance, and Russia also conducted a wide bombing campaign and launched a ground campaign outside of the breakaway regions. The war would not have escalated to this level were it not for Russian involvement. Listen to what Medvedev said when he called an end to the operation. He cited part of the reason for the end of fighting as the "aggressor" being sufficiently "punished" and "suffering significant casualties" while adding its citizens and peacekeepers were safe. It's clear this whole conflict was about Russia attacking Georgia. I mean, this should at least be called the 2008 Georgian war or something similar even though the name being widely used is Russia-Georgia War.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"The main fighting is very much between Russia and Georgia" - I think that about everyone in Tskhinvali would stongly disagree with such a statement. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Strong disagree. John McCain already has this page bookmarked. Naurmacil (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Weak disagree. I think it's too early to know what this conflict/war will ultimately be named. Let it play out in the media for a bit longer and eventually a public concensus will be reached. While I agree that "2008 South Ossetia war" isn't an entirely accurate descriptor, I'm not sure "Russo-Georgian" or "Russia-Georgia" war are either. Give it a few more days and then we'll have a better idea about what to call it. croll (talk) 17:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Strong disagree I will be agree if it will be called "War in Georgia", but not "Russo-Georgian war". Because Russians is not only side who combated against Georgia. --Alexander Widefield (talk) 17:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Actualy most popular name used by the international sources should be chosen. If majority of world calls it "South Ossetia War" then that should be name, if most popular name is "Russo-Georgian War" then that should be chosen. Wikipedians can't invent their own names.--Staberinde (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Weak disagree. Seems to me that this is a war about South Ossetia. This is no more a Russo-Georgian war then the Kosovo conflict was a Nato Serbian war.[[Slatersteven (talk) 19:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)]]

I agree with this rationale; the current name is fine and more descriptive than other possibilities as it refers to the primary zone of the conflict, which also happens to be the territory over which the war was fought. Begoner (talk) 20:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree It's been pointed out many times before that the majority of sources do not refer to it as a South Ossetian conflict. From today: Georgia crisis – CNN, Russia 'ends Georgia operation' – BBC, Georgia-Russia conflict – BBC, Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia on Tuesday – AP, World Wrap-2: Russia calls end to military operation in Georgia – RIA Novosti... --Elliskev 19:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

How did they call it between August 8-10? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Disagree, but name should be changed As some people in this discussion have pointed out, there are more combatants than just Russia and Georgia, hence why I do not support the proposal that the name of this article should be changed to something like "Russia-Georgia War 2008". However, as other people in this discussion have said, the current title of the article is misleading, since combat is taking place outside of that territory. I propose that the new name of this article should be "War in Georgia 2008". I have proposed this title because all combat is taking place within the internationally recognised boundaries of Georgia, and the new title does not single out any combatants at the expense of others. 86.146.241.248 (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Strong Disagree Wikipedia's function is not to decide what things should be named, but to document what names are generally used. As pointed out above, there as yet no consensus among news media about what to call this war, or even whether it *is* a war, as opposed to an "operation" or a "crisis." One oft-used definition requires 1,000 battle deaths to be called a war. I still don't see the urgency. A consensus of terminology should emerge within a few weeks and then Wikipedia can follow suit. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment After reading Robert A West's statement, I am reminded of Wikipedia's policy on this type of matter. As A West correctly pointed out, the name of Wikipedia articles on wars/operations should be the same as the common name of wars/operations. As A West suggested, though, a common name has not yet been attained. Even so, I still believe a discussion for a move is still valid, as we should assign a provisional name to this article that is more reflective of the suituation. 86.146.241.248 (talk) 21:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment OK, so provisionally - "2008 Western Caucasus War"? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russia-Georgia War is the most widely used term and reflects this very well. I mean, several parts of the Pacific War did not take place in the Pacific but that reflected the general scope of the war. Calling this a Russia-Georgia War does accurately reflect the scope of the article as it is primarily a war between Russia and Georgia. South Ossetia was about to fall the first day before Russia intervened it was Russian intervention that prolonged that area of conflict and the conflict was expanded to other parts of Georgia, not merely South Ossetia largely because of Russian intervention. If in 1999 the U.S. conducted operations in Kosovo and Vojvodina it wouldn't be called the Kosovo War because it would have been about more than Kosovo. Pretty much all the media using a name call it a Russia-Georgia War and history will not view it as an issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia but Russia making war against Georgia. Russia has forces which side with it and in several other conflicts, such as the Chadian-Libyan conflict, the forces which are backed by a power do not change the nature of the conflict as one between the two powers. All the other little groups mentioned are aligned with one side or another. If this was some chaotic situation like in Bosnia or the Congo where there were more than two sides fighting there might be a case for calling this something else.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment I believe The Devil's Advocate makes some very good points. The war is primarily between Russia and Georgia, imo, as he has stated, so I can understand his reasoning for wanting the article to be called "Russia-Georgia War". However, why not call this article "War in Georgia 2008", as no side is focused upon in the title at the expense of another? With TDA's suggested title, there might be a large number of debates occuring on this talk page by people who claim that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are being discriminated against in the title. Why have this when we can have a title which does not allow the chance, imo, of that happening? 86.146.241.248 (talk) 21:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

There are lots of, lots of changes to the lead here, leading to quite some edit warring and a lot of confusion. I don't think anyone of us want that. Plus, a lot of false information and sourceless material gets in there during the edit warring. I'm proposing here that a group of contributors here discuss and decide the composition of the whole lead and the warbox before making changes to the article, instead of edit warring over every single point. Here, for a start, the lead now:

The 2008 South Ossetia war is a military conflict that started on August 7, 2008 involving Georgia, South Ossetian and Abkhazian secessionists, and the Russian Federation. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are territories within Georgia that declared independence from Georgia and have been acting in a de facto independent capacity since the early 1990s. Neither state has been diplomatically recognised by any member of the United Nations. In the early 2000s, it was reported that 95% of the native population in South Ossetia adopted Russian citizenship.[25]On 7 August 2008, Georgia claimed that South Ossetian separatists had shelled Georgian villages in violation of a ceasefire. Georgia launched a military offensive to surround and capture the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali[26]. South Ossetia denies provoking conflict.[27][22]Russia moved its troops across the Georgian border, bringing ground forces into South Ossetia and Abkhazia and launching airstrikes on targets elsewhere in the country. The Russian government's stated justification for entering Georgian territory was to protect its own citizens and to prevent "a genocide by Georgian forces".[28][22] Georgia retreated from its offensive in South Ossetia due to Russian intervention (labelled as "Russian aggression.")[29] Separatists claim that Georgians killed at least 1000 South Ossetian people before the Russians intervened.[30] Russia responded to the charge in the United Nations, saying Georgia had started the war by conducting a military operation against South Ossetia.[22] Georgia insisted it had earlier been provoked by attacks by South Ossetian militants, which South Ossetia repeatedly denies.[27]Most international observers have called for a peaceful solution to the conflict[31] The European Union and the United States expressed a will to send a joint delegation to try to negotiate a cease-fire.[32] Russia ruled out peace talks with Georgia until the latter withdrew from South Ossetia and signed a legally binding pact renouncing the use of force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia.[33]Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said early on August 12 that he had ordered an end to military operations in Georgia.[34] Yet, fighting continued and Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said that Russian jets were still targeting civilians.[35]

Here are some changes I propose:

Russian Federation -> Russia or Georgia-> Republic of Georgia. - To be consistent in our naming per MOS.
Rewriting third and fourth paragraph, so we mention the events in this sequence: Georgia launches surprise operation -> Georgia then claims to be attacked by separatists -> South Ossetian separatists deny -> Russia threatens to respond, accuses Georgia of conducting a genocide -> //(4th paragraph) Russia responds and moves troops to South Ossetia -> Georgia claims to be defending against Russian aggression -> Russia says that Georgia had started the conflict. This is a slight change from the original lead, and I believe for the better. The original lead doesn't really fit into the actual timeline.
South Ossetian militants -> South Ossetian separatists. I was the one who actually wrote "militants", but on second thought, its a stupid choice of word. They're separatists.
fighting continued -> Georgia reports that fighting continued.
Add, before Russian claiming it had halted operations, the Georgian claim of ceasefire, which was originally there. I'm not sure why it was removed.
If possible, add some of the international reactions to the matter as they are important. We can add the US criticism of Russia, which is dominating the U.S. media right now, and we can also add statements by countries like Italy who supported Russia's right to intervene. Naurmacil (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I consider that POV and untrue. Sorry. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you consider POV and untrue? No need to apologize. Naurmacil (talk) 16:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sequence. Militants is right (depending) ... "all men are participating in S. Ossetia", Georgia began calling for cease Saturday. Still wish for better org. world opinion. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? You mean that it'd be biased towards militants because the militants have the last word? Then wouldn't it be biased towards the Georgians if the Georgians had the last word? I've tried my best to make the sequence according to the actual timeline. I want to add that Georgia called for a ceasefire - somebody removed that for some reason. Wait a minute. Naurmacil (talk) 16:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying it depends on what you refer and the time. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Disagree with conflict starting with "surprise attack".. There seems to have been a breakout of violence. (To be determined.) firstly. The word "surprise" is not justified. None of the participants had been "surprised". "Genocide" has no support outside Russia. Don't think we need both "genocide" sentence and the Russia thinks Georgia started. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Information Farware could be expanded

Information Farware could be expanded or made as new article, as reader of both Russian and American news sites i can tell that its actually amazing to see the difference between what media spills on both sides. Or rather what media doesn't tell. For example all of United Nations emergency meetings were open yet almost no speeches were shown.

[22] Video and translated text of Vitaliy Churkin (Russian representative at UN) speech about whole Georgian-South Ossetian crisis.

Also it was reported and confirmed (yet never mentioned in western media i think) that Georgia captured two to four russian military officers including col. Igor Zinov, they were shot from TU-22P plane while conducting reconnaissance mission. Georgia claims that they were shot during bombing run on Gori. They are held in hospital in city called Gudushauri and they were shown laing on a beds and supposedly confirming what Georgia claims.

The fact is we don't know what's information warfare and what's not. They're not waged to be known. We may be victims too. Naurmacil (talk) 16:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I remove a whole paragraph of the propaganda war section. It is ridiculous. How do we know we are not victims of propaganda? Moreover, how do we know that these are propaganda? What if, in fact, one side is telling the truth, but the other side is spreading propaganda - and more than that, if the other side is spreading propaganda that the other side is spreading propaganda? It makes no sense. These are not just original research, they are completely useless in terms of encyclopedic value. Naurmacil (talk) 16:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)::

Not to debate encyclopedic values here but i do know that history is written by the winners therefore there isn't a single history fact associated with war that can be confirmed as entirely plausible. By providing two points of views from both sides, users can actually decide what to believe themselves by reading article, confirming that from other sources or just believing in what they want to believe.

Well, there is this article from Radio Free Europe discussing the differences between the Western and Russian media coverages of the war. One excerpt:

“

‘Any such conflict affects the internal political situation by stimulating flag-waving patriotism,’ says Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov. ‘This is particularly unpleasant, considering the extremely distressing anti-Georgia campaign we saw two years ago. If the armed conflict continues to escalate, I think the Russian leadership will have to take the utmost measures to prevent anti-Georgian agitation in the country.’

”

The Chinese media also discussed about different media coverages. They came to a conclusion that the Western media is no more trustworthy than the Russians'. Of course, the Chinese have been feeling pretty agitated about the Western media since their absurd coverage of the Olympic torch relay months ago.

We can usually decipher propaganda by looking for what they did not mention. Georgia and the West did not mention why it launched a surprise military operation against South Ossetia. In fact, they hardly mentioned that at all. Russia, on the other hand, had little explanation for its advances into Georgia. Naurmacil (talk) 16:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Speech of Vladimirs Churkin at UN emergency meeting has actually been used as source for many citations in western media since he used words *genocide* and ethnic *cleansing* while describing why Russia pushed into South Ossetia, he also explained why Russia advanced further into Georgia:

“

‘Like any military man knows, and not only the military, when this kind of operation is under way, the overwhelming goal is not only directly in the conflict area, but sometimes beyond. Those goals, which used to support military action. This we have seen repeatedly in different situations. For example in the case of Kosovo, no special definitions itself is not limited to, but simply have to bomb the capital Belgrade and bridges on the Danube, which were in the hundreds of kilometres from the conflict zone.’

”

--85.141.84.61 (talk) 17:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Strategic position of S. Ossetia

I noticed that there is not any mention of the strategic position of S. Ossetia for Russian aggression. S. Ossetia provides a platform for invading the Georgian Heartland and protect the tunnel through the mountains. That those mountains would otherwise provide a natural defense for Georgia. Thus, the importance to both sides. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 14:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You may want to find a source for that. Otherwise, it's original research. Besides, where in article would it fit? --Tone 14:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Intro or background... I'll go look. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Georgia: Avoiding War in South Ossetia

Secition D, Pages 8-9

65.68.1.90 (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Military importance of South Ossetia

65.68.1.90 (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

July 26th - - Russia Profile - South Ossetia Looks North

Last two paragraphs of "Rising Tensions"

65.68.1.90 (talk) 15:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Georgia And Russia Collide In South Ossetia

Fourth paragraph from the bottom.

65.68.1.90 (talk) 15:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

“Strategically, Abkhazia {Georgia’s other breakaway region} is the southern terminus of the Sukhumi Military Road and South Ossetia, the Georgian and Ossetian Military Roads,” explained a Russian military expert. “All are traditional strategically vital Russian (Soviet) ground routes across the High Caucasus Mountains into the Trans-Caucasus Region. Russia will never relinquish them, whatever the cost.”

I'd just quote this at the top somewhere.

65.68.1.90 (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Great. Please suggest exactly your text to be included.Biophys (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, Russia doesn't need South Ossetia if it wants to invade Georgia. It doesn't really bring any relevancy to the article because if Russia wants to use South Ossetia to invade Georgia, why wait until Georgia invades South Ossetia? Sounds like speculation for me. Naurmacil (talk) 16:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK fine... You don't think Russia was trying to get a reaction from Gerogria? That's a POV to me. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We all have POVs. I do think that Russia didn't have a plan before Georgia attacked. It was the Olympics, for god's sake. But whatever, clearly you have another view, so let's just try to make the full use of sources. Naurmacil (talk) 16:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with NPOV while providing equal shares of relevant POV's. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Layout

Something is terribly wrong with the layout (at least for me). Could somebody please fix the infobox? --88.70.70.159 (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. — Jan Hofmann (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for that, there's a problem with my browser. Naurmacil (talk) 16:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected request

{{editprotected}} There needs to be a period after the sentence "Most international observers have called for a peaceful solution to the conflict" in the introduction. Spencer^T♦^C 16:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, I was logged out. That's why. Done. Spencer^T♦^C 16:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Involvement of the United States

Little is known about the involvement of the United States in this war. We know that the US Air Force delivered 2000 Georgian troops and equipment using C-17s, but there has to be more to it. Was cover provided by combat aircraft? Did Russia guarantee the safety of the aircraft and crews? I doubt the US would fly transport sorties without such assurances or/and air cover. I would like to know more, but most mainstream news sources aren't reporting much. --Josephdurnal (talk) 16:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The U.S. also trained Georgian forces. Along with Israel. We've found a few sources for that, but somehow they disappeared from the lead. Not sure if they're still in the content. Naurmacil (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no reference that the training received was for the intent of S. Ossetian conflict. And, there is reference to attempts to keep this training from being used against people within Georgia. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 16:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the point is that the U.S. is involved in the Georgian military. Whatever the purposes. That alone is noteworthy. Not just because U.S's reaction would be immensely favored towards Georgia due to its allied status, but also because U.S. citizens may be at risk in the conflict. Which is a big deal to Americans. Naurmacil (talk) 16:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Less important then Russia providing weapons to the breakaways.65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Dang, I wanted to write that. Not necessarily less important (Israel was happy about the income from selling their new rifles), but certainly better documented.

As regards US citizens (= US military advisors, which of course tend to have US citizenship), the AFP report on the "puzzled Pentagon" seemed to imply that they had stayed put. The "no Russians in Gori" bit was all but explicitly stated to be on-the-ground intel, and the advisors were stationed in Gori some weeks ago (pre-war reporting). So apparently these guys were enough on top of the situation to conduct some impromptu intel gathering.

It may be (I think I remember reading something implying that on Friday or so) that Russia coordinated with the US to keep US advisors away from where it got dangerous. There may be some sources found via Google News. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Did Russia guarantee the safety of the aircraft and crews" - German Yahooo on the 10th seemed to imply that the transport was stalled due to Russia doing a little in-your-face-Dubya haggling over that. But this is unconfirmed (and the reliability of that source is dubious at best):

If the troops landed at Tbilisi, it would need to have been coordinated with Russia.
If the troops were landed at Mameuli, which is just across the border with Armenia, permission from Armenia (siding with Russia, or rather: siding against Georgia and especially its lukewarm ally, Turkey - some things are not easily forgotten) would be more important; as regards Russia, a message along the lines of "don't mess with Texas" would suffice in this case. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The Air Force Times article suggests that they landed in Tiblisi

Pentagon officials would not say where the C-17s dropped off the Georgian troops or if they entered Georgian airspace, but Associated Press photos show the Georgian troops disembarking in Tblisi, Georgia’s capital.

So in one hand Russia denounces the US for flying the Georgian sodiers home, but in the other hand, allowed the flights to proceed. --Josephdurnal (talk) 17:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is there this almost desperate attempt to find an involvement of the U.S. in this conflict? When they find black bodies in South Ossetia, then of course they belonged to U.S.-American troops. Because in other countries there don't live black people, huh? Then again the training of the Georgian Army has something to do with war, but not with this one, but with the War in Iraq. The same can be said about the transport of troops from Iraq to Georgia. There is no direct involvement of the U.S. I still wait to hear following news in some Russian news paper article: "Evidence, USA involved in war. Local peasant from South Ossetia claims: "I swear, I saw Elvis when the Georgian troops came..." " -- DanteRay (talk) 17:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is no secret the the U.S. helps Georgia. Georgia had a lot of troops (for their size) in Iraq, I'm sure they are expecting help from the U.S. and I would be surprised if the U.S. isn't doing a lot behind the scenes. Obviously, the U.S. isn't going to start bombing Russian positions, but the involvement is likely much more than has been reported. --Josephdurnal (talk) 17:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You might want to read this. A lot of people expect the US to be more forthcoming, but actually this here lil war is about the last thing the US needed now (technically, a little Georgian flag might be missing from the left column). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ceasefire

It was reported that Russia called a ceasefire today, claiming it had accomplished its mission to protect its citizens and peace-keepers. Russia is reported to be in full control of S. Ossetia. 68.40.244.138 (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC) (Mactruth)

Yes, it should be noted that three days after Georgia called for a ceasefire Russia began to call for one.65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Georgia called for a ceasefire" Twice. And as it may well be, broke it twice only mintues after the announcement (this is still unknown and may be unknowable. Reports from Tskhinvali and Washington indicate that by the time they first announced a ceasefire, Tbilisi had no C3I left to implement it anyway and command of Georgian forces in the "hot" areas was local, so the Tbilisi ceasefire announcements might have just been for showt. Whether intentionally - announciong a ceasefire they knew wouldn't work - or circumstationally - whether they genuinely believed it would work - IONO) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Basically by the time that Tbilisi announced the second ceasefire, nothing suggests that they were in command of any force farther away from the capital than Mkheta. All reporters observing Georgian troops movements speak of a headlong rout towards Tbilisi, with only a few positions hanging on out of their own decision. Under such conditions, any talk of ceasefire is farcical. But as I said, it may be that Saakashvali even then believed he actually was able to give and have his troops implement a ceasefire. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 17:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, a ceasefire which comes only from one side is just senseless. You can't expect that you soldiers won't shoot back when they are attacked, even if there is a one-sided ceasefire. -- DanteRay (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the article is describing it properly. The AP has said it calls for a return to previous positions but according to Civil Georgia the specific statement by Medvedev was "the return of Georgian armed forces to places of their permanent location" and "the Russian peacekeeping forces take additional security measures" which in no way suggests a return of Georgian peacekeepers to South Ossetia as those were not the "permanent positions" of the Georgian armed forces. In fact, the proposal for a demilitarized zone around South Ossetia suggests Russia is not going to allow Georgia to return to its previous positions in South Ossetia. This is initially how it was reported, until this AP report came out.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added that source in and added in Medvedev's exact words. Esn (talk) 18:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Who broke what, where, and when is something to be determined later. Both, POV's should be given. And, given with less importance until more is known. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Concur. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflict did not start with Georgians moving in..

There are numerous sources of conflict prior to that happening. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

AFP - US urges Russia to avoid provocation in South Ossetia

65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The sentence,

Georgia then claimed that South Ossetian separatists had shelled Georgian villages in violation of a ceasefire.

implies that conflict had not been going on and that only after they moved in did they claim conflict had.

65.68.1.90 (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

These mutual artillery duels have been constant occurrence during the last 4 years or so.

But there is another thing: what about the claims by Saakashvali that he was duped - that he was led to believe an unannounced(? do they have to announce these?) Russian "peacekeeper" convoy moving into S Ossetia on the 7th or early 8th was part of an invasion: Russia had quite obviously concentrated troops in N Ossetia since the start of April, with little effort to hide it from Georgian eyes (apparently Putin even told GWB in person, knowing one Texan who can't keep his mouth shut when he sees one), but took pains to deny any knowledge of the troop concentration to Georgian officials. And that then he broke and overreacted, ordering the Russians (a handful or two of BMPs) to be stopped with all force necessary, which was promptly done courtesy of a Georigan artillery unit? And that then there was a Russian bombing raid "into Georgia" (which according to Tbilisi includes S Ossetia of course, so if this artillery ambush happened, the "peacepkeepers" might just have wired for CAS which oh-so-conveniently was instantly available). In response to which he ordered the assault on Tskhanvali, in response to which a suspiciously ready-to-rumble Russian force waltzed in?

As The Independent puts it:

[Saakashvali] called Mr Putin's bluff, and Mr Putin, with some trademark harsh words, laid down a full house...

There was no real "provocation" in the shelling, that was just the usual bad blood. Has happened over and over again since the last ceasefire. But Putin seems to have invited Saakashvali to a fight and for reasons that are utterly baffling Saasakshvali took the bait. So basically Putin seems to have dangled something in front of Saakashvali's nose to see whether he understood it as Russian provocation, but if he did, things were arranged so that it would technically be a Georgian provocation (an unpremediated attack on "Russian peacekeepers" which it that's what happened probably were exactly that - why waste good troops?).

That is what I can glean from the cryptic comments of a Mr Saakashvali who was at that time (2 days ago) too close to a nervous breakdown to be comfortable with it. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, a phrase Saakashvali used was that he had received "evil news" or "news of ugly things going on" or similar, without any further elaborations and from sources unspecified, on or around August 5th. By August 3rd or 4th, the Pentagon was in a position to confirm that there was what could be used as a Russian invasion force assembled north of Georgia. Go figure. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the reason the South Ossetian shelled Georgian villages was probably because of Georgian snipers taking pot-shots at them from those villages. There exists no motive why South Ossetia would try and deliberately start a War with Georgia, because they would be the main people to suffer regardless and potentially be annexed if Russia didn't come to their rescue. The reverse is not the case. Georgia has all the motives to try and 'reclaim' South Ossetia.

Date format

I've already started a discussion on this. It's in the archives here. I thought, based on the discussion, and on the predominance of format, that there was a consensus that this article should use dd Month yyyy format.

It's getting pretty annoying chasing date preference changes all over this article. I'm trying to get all dates in a consistent format. User:Tocino is now following me, reverting my date format edits. --Elliskev 17:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

12 August is a re-direct to August 12. --Tocino 17:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Dates aren't linked because there's anything relevant in the trivia-collection you get when you click them. Dates are linked so a small minority of readers (registered users who have set date preferences) don't have to be offended by seeing a date format that they don't like. Most users see whatever is put into the article. If the date formats are inconsistent, most readers will see inconsistent date formats, which makes the article look bad. So, we need to stick with one format and it doesn't matter what useless information happens to be behind the links. --Elliskev 17:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up So... I propose we don't link dates in this article. As I stated in the archived discussion, there are enough high-value links that we don't need to clutter the article with links to trivia. --Elliskev 17:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That's why I went in and changed all of the re-directs (that I could find... I probably missed some) to the proper links. --Tocino 17:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The linked dates are not meant to be links. --Elliskev 17:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We can remove some of the repetitive links, but I believe we should keep the same text, which is the mm/dd format. --Tocino 18:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing some links and leaving others will cause format inconsistencies for registered users who have a date preference setting that differs from the format used in unlinked dates. So it's either all linked or all unlinked. Either all Month dd, yyyy or all dd Month yyyy.

I'm not against Month dd, yyyy. It's just that, per WP:DATE, If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. This article evolved in one format. That format should be respected. --Elliskev 18:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be dd/mm/yy becuase the date changes most therefore should be at the front. Then month chances second most therefore in the middle, then year least therefore at the end. This makes the most sense to me and is the most logical Ijanderson977 (talk) 17:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We should use the format which doesn't rely on re-directs. We should also use the format which is American, because the U.S. is more involved in this conflict than British Commonwealth is. --Tocino 17:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think dd/mm/yy is a good option. It's ambiguous. Best to spell out the month. --Elliskev 17:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Either format is acceptable, especially here, where the topic has no particular relation to any English speaking country. Please leave it alone, all of you. We have more urgent problems. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not very helpful. The article was 90% one format. I don't need you to scold me for wanting to better the article by changing the other 10% to be consistent. --Elliskev 18:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm I think its best to use the British version AKA European version because Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia are all places in Europe therefore we should use the European version. This makes sense, obviously if it was in the Americas, it would be best to use the American version. Also I strongly agree with Elliskev over consistency, no harm in trying to achieve consistency. We shouldn't be punished for doing this. Ijanderson977 (talk) 18:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Besides, most of the dates are linked and this is not reasonable (what is a link to August 12 doing in this article for example...) Someone with AWB please fix it. --Tone 18:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That is for date auto-formatting. There is a discussion here about the advantages/disadvantages of linking dates. Per WP:DATE, date-auto-formatting-linking is currently an optional practice, to be decided upon on an article-by-article basis. --Elliskev 18:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The main reason for autoformating was to stop all the arguments like this one. But apparently that isn't enough anymore. Rmhermen (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Or it never was enough... Either way, is there something wrong with striving for a consistent date format within an article? --Elliskev 19:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Pipeline bombardment" seciotn should be extended

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please add sentance "BP said it has seen no evidence of Russian attacks against the pipeline and 'no reports from people on the ground of any effect on the pipe at all.' " http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_890468872

after words: "Georgia claims Russia is targeting the pipeline"

BP has closed down both pipelines as they consider them at risk WatcherZero (talk) 18:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Source? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The pipeline thing looks like a merge candidate to the "Propaganda" section. Not because the Georgian claims are bound to be false (though the half-life of Georgian claims is about 12 hours of this war), but because if it were true, the Russians are missing far too often (not even a single bomb hitting even close by in 7+ attacks and counting? Ehm, no.). So the whole pipeline thing is really a psychological game, no matter if any airstrikes were flown or not. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Remove sucessionist claim from South Ossettia and Abkhazia involvement. Also war starts August 1st

The term 'successionists' has apparantly been added beneath Abkhazia and South Ossettia. However nowhere in else in Wikipedia (including old wars involving these) are they referred too as 'successionists', only as South Ossetia.

This is POV stuff, since South Ossettia and Abkhazia are independant at least de-facto, they are therefore no longer 'successionists' except from a Georgian POV.

Also the war starts on August 1st, not August 7th when the Georgians started sniping at the South Ossetian army, not when the offensive was launched. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slayer of Cliffracers (talk • contribs) 17:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we should change it from South Ossetia secessionists and Abkhazia secessionists to Republic of South Ossetia and Republic of Abkhazia, and we should also change Russia to Russian Federation. --Tocino 17:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing South Ossetia secessionists and Abkhazia secessionists to Republic of South Ossetia and Republic of Abkhazia is a blatant violation of NPOV. Putting evil separatists on the same level as sovereign nations is completely POV. However I agree Russia should be changed to Russian Federation. Ijanderson977 (talk) 19:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Gasp! The South Ossetians and Abkhazians are, as Ian points out, evil separatists. /sarcasm. How is it, Tocino, that the Abkhaz and Ossetians are good separatists while you insist on other pages that the Kosovars are evil Albanian separatists who are in league with Satan? What's the difference, exactly? Canadian Bobby (talk) 19:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Russia is an official name of the country per its constitution, just like the Russian Federation, and is certainly known much better internationally. No need to waste more space, the article is large enough without this. If you like Russia that much, you should read its constitution at the very least. Colchicum (talk) 20:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I take it you have not viewed my profile page? Ijanderson977 (talk) 20:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The situation's has been sorted out, but I don't see why it's Government of Abkhazia, rather than just Abkhazia (is it the Abkhazian volunteers fighting on the other side?). And Russia is fine, although Russian Federation would do as well, it is shorter.

Oh it seems that it's been edited back to seperatists. This is Pro-Georgia POV because it is not neutral to refer to a country as seperatists unless they are fighting their initial war to obtain independance. Reffering to them as internationally unrecognised would be correct and NPOV, but unneceserily long since it is not a secret.

For instance, in the Iraq War thread say we don't call the USA the.

Seperatist government of the USA. Just the USA. Because it isn't their initial war of independance. According to the principle set down by this thread we should since they were seperatists against the British Empire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slayer of Cliffracers (talk • contribs) 22:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

POVs

Okay, I'm going to suggest a few POVs that editors might want to consider changing.

From the lead:
- Georgia then claimed that South Ossetian separatists had shelled Georgian villages in violation of a ceasefire.
It might be unintentional, but the use of the word 'then' makes it sound like the Georgians didn't come up with this claim until after the fact.

Scrap the "then". It is sourceable also (though it is not as one-sided as Tbilisi claims) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

- Georgia retreated from its offensive in South Ossetia, then claimed to be defending itself against "Russian aggression.
Again it sound like they are retreating and then thinking up a justification afterwards. Also, retreating and defending in this context are contradictory, so it makes it sound like the Georgians are doing one thing and then saying another.

Maybe "but" instead of "then"? For we only know that a ceasefire was announced by Tbilisi twice, and that it did not stick. We neither know whether Tbilisi had the necessary C3I to actually command troops to a ceasefire at least the second time, and we even don't know if Tbilisi was aware of the military situation (Pentagon assessment says they probably weren't).

Or perhaps sideline the entire thing, and bluntly state that they ceased offensive operations. Which is correct in any case - whether they couldn't do otherwise or implemented orders to do so does not matter with such a wording. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

- Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili proposed a new peace accord, under which South Ossetia would be given "a large degree of autonomy" (which they already had in any case) within a federal state.
The section in brackets is pure editorializing.

- The Georgian budget contains military costs estimated at just under US$1 billion[45][46] or a 7 fold jump from 0.59% to about 4.5% of GDP (purchasing power parity),[47] .This does not include the U.S. Army aid which includes substantial amounts to support and train Georgia since 2002.[48]Russian military spending is almost static with US$40 billion, with a 16% increase over last year.[49]
Why does Georgian military spending come under Georgia's interests? Why is there not a similar discussion of Russia's military spending in Russian interests? You know why: POV. 137.44.13.70 (talk) 17:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You are only seperatists on your 1st War to obtain Independance. Since this is not the 1st War, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia being Seperatist Government is blatently POV, since to do so implicity recognises the Georgian claim on those places. That South Ossetia and Abygazia are unrecognised is already stated on their pages, so the NPOV position is actually to call them the Republics of Abykhazia and South Ossetia.

Calling them seperatists is a bit like calling the USA seperatists in the present day, because they originally were seperatists against Britain.

P.O.W.'s

Any reports on pow's

As Russia claims, there is no war and thus no pow's, just lost Georgian soldiers :-) 90.191.22.22 (talk) 18:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This article will never be neutral.

Russian services are active on the net, web blogs, and forums(see Web brigades) and its more then likely they infiltrated Wikipedia as well. Additionally the level of activism from nationalistic minded Russian users from pro-government organisations will ensure(combined with the average higher determination and numeric quantity) that the article will be always a battlefield for Russian nationalists supporting the invasion and bringing about Russian made claims. Since most users are not determined enough to keep on trying to neutralise it in face of such massive activity and Georgians are far fewer then the consequences are obvious.--Molobo (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

About Gori

"60 civilians were killed when at least one bomb hit an apartment in Gori", - is a lie. Russian warplane dropped the one bomb exactly on an armament depot near these buildings. Casualties was the result of explosion of an ammunition. About 60 civilians were wounded, unknown (?) number of civilians was lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ru magister (talk • contribs) 19:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Cite your source, please. --K kc chan (talk) 19:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There is something strange going on... I started this section (About Gori) at the time that can be seen in the edit history. Could anybody explain, why, after pressing Save page button, the text under this section was totally altered (to the paragraph seen above this paragraph under the section title).

The text I wrote under this section (being the only text under this section) was (something like):

"U.N. aid workers report up to 80 percent of the population in the Georgian border town of Gori has left following heavy bombardment by Russian aircraft." http://voanews.com/english/2008-08-12-voa30.cfm . Please add this information into the article and correct it correspondingly (respecting the chronolgy, i.e placing the information after the current (incl. Russian) statements about Gori).

From the same source: "The International Committee of the Red Cross says a plane loaded with 16 tons of medical supplies as well as materials to support water distribution to 20,000 people left Geneva Tuesday for Tblisi. Red Cross spokeswoman Anna Nelson says that ICRC does not yet have access in South Ossetia." Please add this information under the section Aid in the article. Thank you! 213.35.176.54 (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reports that It was all planned by Russia, Georgia most likely made them move sooner then planned

They were reports of planned Russian invasion of Georgia relased by Chechen seperatists in July. According to them the invasion was to begin on 18th August. The report can be tracked to July and is detailed. Also US officials now claim that Russian movements earlier this month suggest Russians were using railways to transport large number of troops in preperation for invasion. All the above can be sourced to news reports. The planned arrival of several NATO leaders in Georgia's capital during the invasion and Lithuania's declaration that it will call for NATO to consider military intervention was probably the deciding factor why Russians broke off the attempt to take over Georgia-it was on the brink of confrontation with NATO.--Molobo (talk) 19:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Note: Molobo cites this two sections down. Christiangoth (talk) 19:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

RM-70 used by Georgians is a Slovak weapon

RM-70 is NOT a Czech weapon, but a Slovak one. It has been produced in Slovakia (Dubnica) ever since, both before and after the split of Czecho-Slovakia. It should be therefore referred to as either Czecho-Slovak (Czechoslovak) or Slovak. For more info see e.g. Czech version of the RM-70 wikipedia article, certainly a good reference in this context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.94.137.86 (talk) 19:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is a Slovak weapon, but it was supplied by the Czech Republic. Colchicum (talk) 20:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

US envoy accuses Russia of planning the invasion-Reuters

[23] As said above.--Molobo (talk) 19:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem is: Saakashvali invaded. Is it the job of the US to tell Russia what to do, or is it rather their job to keep their over-the-top ally at bay? Failure to gdo so is what lead to this mess, and of course they try to point the accusing finger Moscowwards. [ Christine Keeler voice ] "They would now, wouldn't they?" Counterclaim: Russia accuses US of trying to establish a foothold in Georgia with eventual plans to violently wrest S Ossetia and Abkhasia back under Tbilis's control. Damage control attempts by Washington that are given more for the media than anything else (Russia won. If they gave a damn what the US think, the whole thing would not have started as it did!) are not a reliable source. IT's the same league as the "al-Qaida's back is broken" stuff that various US envoys have been drivelling for nearly 7 years now. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem is: Saakashvali invaded.According to Nazi Germany Poland invaded Germany in 1939. It is standard psy-ops operation. Russia has been provocing through South Ossetia attacks for Georgia to give it pretext to invade. Probably Georgia reacted too fast as reports by Chechens in July dated the invasion as within August 18th date. The plan was to take Tibilisi in a couple of days. Likely the presence of Goergian troops in SO made some unexpected resistance to Russian encroachment that allowed NATO countries to save Georgia from Russian occupation.Fortunetly Russian plans were foiled and democracy and freedom of Georgians saved in the last minute. Anyway this is all speculation-what can be sourced and should be is that :

In July Chechens reported that all scale invasion of Georgia is planned by Russia in August.
US officials believe the conflict was planned by Russia.

"Chechens". The guys wo destroy whole Russian divisions before lunch and never mistreat their prisoners. "US officials" - people who believed (or stated to believe) that Saddam could launch a withering nerve gas bombardment on 30 minutes' notice on any Coalition forces that entered The Red Zone. There is a term for the US behavior: "sore loser". There is a term for US and Chechnyan spokesppl: "biased and highly unreliable sources".

We could include this, sure - but then we would have to accompany this with a Russian counterclaim. Having seen the accusations Russia makes against the US, I seriously do not recommend that. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Since there are articles pointing to Russian build up prior to the conflict. I don't see why they can't be included. I don't agree with banning Russian sources. Why ban American then? 65.68.1.90 (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, it appears that Russia began a build up. Conflicts began to break out. Georgia began planning a response. Georgia lied about their response plans. Georgia then went in, forcefully. Russia then went in, forcefully. Now wer're here. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Nazi Germany was responsible for Holocaust yet it revealed Katyn Massacre. The atrocities of one side do not cancel its ability to report on opponents(likewise Soviet Union had Gulags but liberated Auschwitz...of course murdering later some of the inmates like Wladyslaw Pilecki). The fact they reported plans to invade Georgia one month before the actual invasion started is notable. There could have been doubts if they claimed it today, but they claimed it a month before the actual invasion.--Molobo (talk) 22:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

They openly talked about their plans prior to the Georgian advance. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 22:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to move article

Since a notable amount of combat has taken place during this war outside of South Ossetia, specifically in Abkhazia and Georgia proper (by Georgia proper, I am referring to all of Georgia bar the three disputed territories), I think this article should have its title changed to reflect that, as "2008 South Ossetia war" suggests that combat is limited to that disputed territory alone. Perhaps a new title could be "2008 Russian-Georgian War". 86.146.241.248 (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Current title reflects the cause of the conflict well enough. Short of repeatedly conflicting and unconfirmed claims made by Georgian officials, I am not aware of any sources independently confirming significant presence of Russian ground troops outside of disputed territories. Also, this just keeps coming back. Or am I feeding a troll? Gleb (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

More soneone who had not grokked the discuz above. It will be moved soon enough, where to remains to be seen. With a title like "2008 Russian-Georgian war" we would have to split off "2008 Georgian invasion of South Ossetia". But this is nonsensical. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Although I am not able to prove it, I would like to state that I am not a troll. As Dysmorodrepanis suggested, I had not observed that proposals for a move had already been made, before I made my own request. I apologise for starting a new discussion regarding a possible move of this article, as a result. Having said that, I would like to respond to some of the points that have been made in this discussion. I can understand Gleb's reasoning behind him saying "Current title reflects the cause of the conflict well enough." I do not agree with his point, though, as that would be suggesting that World War One should be called the "Serbian War 1914" (as another user in another discussion on this talk page suggested). On another point, as you have acknowledged Gleb, the conflict involves other "disputed territories". As a result, I believe the title should be changed to reflect the fact that more territories than just South Ossetia alone are being fought over. 86.146.241.248 (talk) 21:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Leaders of NATO countries are in Tibilisi now speaking. "We are here to take on the fight"

Leaders of NATO countries Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia are in Tibilisi now speaking at the rally. Also is present the leader of Ukraine. President Kaczynski " - We are to take on the fight. For the first time since a long period our neighbours showed their faces that we know for hundreds of years. Our neighbours believe that nations around them should serve them. We say no!"

A loose translation. I believe it is notable international event-4 NATO countries and Ukraine leaders declaring their will to resist Russian invasions of neighbouring countries. Oh and before somebody asks-they were on route to Georgia's capital before Russians broke off their invasion--Molobo (talk) 20:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That is notable indeed, especially since I hardly think the rest of NATO will be glad about such a statement that has probably neither been coordinated nor authorized... But it belongs to the "International reactions" section mainy. Still I think it's too important not to mention it in one sentence here. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think they were in Warsaw when Medvedev declared peace (their plane took of at 12.30 Warsaw time). Anyway do you have source for that ? Latvian national news agency is not reporting anything like that, though ir would be extremely important if "fight" isn't figure of speach ~~Xil (talk) 20:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think they were in Warsaw when Medvedev declared peace (their plane took of at 12.30 Warsaw time).

The trip was in progress when Russian invasion continued. They were to land in Azari capital and then move by armed convoy to Tibilisi. A larger version of the speech is here:[24] --Molobo (talk) 20:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"I hardly think the rest of NATO will be glad about such a statement"

To be frank:NATO will be dead, since France and Germany actually sided with Russia during its invasion of Georgia. What we will possibly see is Alliance of Democracies supported by McCain if he wins. But regardless, this can be sourced, I will see for larger version of the speech and speeches of others who spoke. --Molobo (talk) 20:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As to english version

[25] International Herald Tribune "Poland's President Lech Kaczynski has told the gathered Georgians, "Our neighbor thinks it can fight us. We are telling it no." He was referring to Russia, which has sent tanks and jets to repel a Georgian advance on a separatist region.

Kaczyinski says Russia wants a return to "old times."

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko told the huge crowd "freedom is worth fighting for." --Molobo (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I hate to impose. But, could I see the articles about France and Germany? Not arguing. Interested. 65.68.1.90 (talk) 21:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

German vice minister of foreign affairs supported Russia and attacked Georgia, Sarkozy supported Russia as well saying "it had right to protect Russian citizens abroad". This can be sourced.--Molobo (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I mean they were at point where trip could have been canceled if they wanted. I don't think that fight is anything more than figure of speach (or refers only to Poland - I think Latvian prime minister can't decide that Latvia will fight), let's wait and see what happens ~~Xil (talk) 21:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Stupid Question..oh well

Is it a violation of Wikipedias policy to use photos of the war from news articles based on yahoo.com? Homan05

Usually they are under copyright, so "yes it is". See Wikipedia:Copyvio and related.Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Good question. Rules is why I'm not on the front trying to edit the article myself.65.68.1.90 (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

tHANK yOu for the response.Homan05

I'm laughing..... A lot, or is it, alot??? 65.68.1.90 (talk) 20:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If that is a serious question, then the answer is that "alot" is not an English word. "A lot" is an acceptable phrase. Christiangoth (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Typo

In the section "Night of August 7 – August 8: Georgian attacks" there is a typo. It starts out:

According to spokesman for Georgia's Interior Ministry statement, during the night and early morning,...

It should be

According to a spokesman for Georgia's Interior Ministry, during the night and early morning,...

or

According to a statement by Georgia's Interior Ministry, during the night and early morning,...

United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia

Is there any word on the status of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia? – Zntrip 20:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Weeks before physical invasion of Georgia it was subject to intense cyberwarfare

[26] New York Times article Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded certain Georgian servers.

--Molobo (talk) 20:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Even though the US has thus far not been a direct belligerent, I hardly consider it neutral. I am concerned that reports such as this and that Russia was planning the invasion in advance are one-sided from the US, and unreliable source as it has its own interests and objectives to consider. Christiangoth (talk) 21:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry to disappoint you, but New York Times is not a mouthpiece of W. Bush. This is not Russia.Biophys (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There are South Ossetian-Georgians refugees, too

According to this article from Time magazine:

“

Indeed, the human suffering is impossible to ignore. Hundreds have been killed and many more wounded. Refugees from South Ossetia continue to arrive in the area outside the capital, looking for somewhere to live. The last few hours may have been the worst. Late in the morning on Tuesday, four attack helicopters swept in over the brow of the hill and fired incendiary bombs into the wheat field. Villagers ran for cover. It was the second attack in less than 12 hours. In the early hours of this morning, a group of Russian jets bombed a cement factory and railway line in the neighboring village. In nearby Gori, the hospital was attacked; a Dutch journalist was killed.

Across the road from the burning farmer's field, three Georgian brothers in their 80s sat on a bench, resting their feet. They had walked 60 km (37 miles) since early Monday and did not know where to go. They are from a small ethnically mixed village in the Liakhvi gorge in South Ossetia. Their families left their homes earlier but, as old people, they stayed behind thinking that they would not be molested. But on Monday morning, Levan Khaduri, 84, a tiny gray-haired man with a deep tan, was putting up a new fence around the home that he was born in when a neighbor, who is Ossetian, said ‘Don't bother. That is not your home any more. Just go.’

‘These were our own neighbors. We knew them!’ says Khaduri, still amazed. ‘We don't know what to do. If I go back. I don't have a house. I don't have cows. Nothing.’ As we talked, another open truck piled high with the belongings of refugees, carpets, clothes, a TV, trundled by on the road to Tbilisi. Even if the war is over for others, these refugees' struggle may be only beginning. They won't be returning to territory now controlled by Russian troops.

”

Well, you cant put this statement on encyclopedia site even if its wikipedia

But you can put eyewitness accounts from the Russian side of "rampaging baby-killing Georgian murderers who run over old women with tanks and shoot wounded Russians" eh?

Warning on Russian Casualties

Russians twist the truth on casualties, as they did in Chechnya, they lost there well over 10 000 soldiers, i believe 21 is not correct, it will be around 100, try to get number from russian and georgian news websites! Mirandamir (talk) 21:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC) If you need help just ask me, I am historian!

American dod must reveal names of soldiers, not private contractors or security, current list of 4140 i would say is 4150 dead solders + 1200 contractors, russia does not have such law!

The War Day-by-Day

I suppose that in the future historical reserches will be a lot of timeline versions how did this WAR start. Let's collect it ?

BBC version http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7551576.stm

THURSDAY 7 AUGUST

Georgian forces and separatists in South Ossetia agree to observe a ceasefire and hold Russian-mediated talks to end their long-simmering conflict. Hours later, Georgian forces launch a surprise attack, sending a large force against the breakaway province and reaching the capital Tskhinvali. South Ossetian rebel leader Eduard Kokoity accuses Georgia of a "perfidious and base step". The head of Georgian forces in South Ossetia says the operation is intended to "restore constitutional order" to the region, while the government says the troops are "neutralising separatist fighters attacking civilians". Russia's special envoy in South Ossetia, Yury Popov, says Georgia's military operation shows that it cannot be trusted and he calls on Nato to reconsider plans to offer it membership. ...

--Niggle (talk) 21:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Georgian forces and separatists in South Ossetia agree to observe a ceasefire and hold Russian-mediated talks to end their long-simmering conflict."

"Hours later, Georgian forces launch a surprise attack, sending a large force against the breakaway province and reaching the capital Tskhinvali."

At least one, possibly more things happened in these "hours", and they are crucial. But what? We have Saakashvali's version and it makes sense in a twisted way. What is as close to fact as it gets is that some sort of munitions was fired by Russian or Georgian armed forces aimed at personnel or installations of the other party. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

18th July 2008:Polish media report about Russian plan to invade Georgia in August[27] --Molobo (talk) 21:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)