Could someone explain the situation between Russia and Georgia?

Question

I have heard that Georgia and Russia are now at war, but how did it all start, and why?

And does Georgia have any chance against Russia?

I live in Norway and even a rich country such as this gets "bullied" by Russia into giving them goods because we fear them.

Answer 1

Well, this isn't very in-depth, but here goes:

Russia has never been too happy about the former Soviet states becoming their own independent nations.  They have tried to maintain a certain amount of control over them in the form of trade.  They formed a union with Russia at the top, but recently countries have begun leaving this union to seek admission to the E.U.  All of this ticks off mama Russia.  

The region of Georgia in question, Southern Ossetia, has a large Russian-loyalist population.  Georgia sent troops to that region to quell an uprising by these seperatists, and Russia sent in troops to support the seperatists.  But it's not Russian territory, so it was seen as an act of aggression.  

My own opinion is that Russia would like to regain that territory.  

So that's a brief description, but that's my grasp of the situation :-)

Answer 2

"Georgians" are an ethnic group distantly related to proper Russians that have inhabited the Caucasus area for thousands of years, and in the 15th century the Muscovite princes who styled themselves "Czar of Russia" conquered the formerly independent kingdom of Georgia and integrated it into the Russian Empire.

After the Russian Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks set up quasi-autonomous sub-states of the Soviet Union, called simply Soviet Socialist Republics, or SSRs.  These were divided up mostly by ethnic group, but smaller ethnic groups were inevitably tacked onto the larger divisions.  Thus there was a Kazakhstan and an Uzbekistan, but not a Tartaristan, a Uighurstan, or a Bashkiristan.  Similarly, there was a Ukraine and a Georgia, but not an independent Chechnya, Abkhazia, or Ossetia.  

When the USSR fell apart, all the former SSRs became independent nation-states, typically with a national culture and language; this left certain subgroups, such as Chechens, Abkhazians, Ossetians, and dozens of others without their own governments, and many promptly agitated to obtain them.  Unfortunately, there are not clear national borders between these groups, as there are many exclaves of Abkhazians and Ossetians outside their nominal territories, and enclaves of Georgians within them.  There have been hostilities on and off since 1991 in both these areas.

Georgia lays its claim to these territories based on the Georgians that inhabit them; Russia lays its claim based on the non-Georgian ethnic groups.  Thus the ostensible reason for Russian occupation of the breakaway provinces was to protect the Ossetians and its own citizens, some of whom are there as peacekeepers/observers, and some of whom are Georgians who have been issued Russian passports.

The real reason, however, illustrates Clausewitz's statement that "War is politics pursued by other means."  Annoyed at the oil pipeline that connects Georgia (and hence the West) with Caspian sea oil but doesn't go through Russia, they have been doing everything possible to keep Georgia isolated and unstable.  As long as Georgia is incapable of defending itself from Russian attack, Russia will be in a position of strength vis-a-vis supplying oil to Europe.

I expect that all along the move was a ploy to extract secret concessions from the EU and the US.  George Bush was all to willing to negotiate, as the longer the crisis continued, the more of a bind Republican presidential candidate John McCain was in: he bills himself as a hawk on Iraq and a friend of Georgia, but there was no way to defend Georgia vigorously without taking troops out of Iraq right away.  He's already tried to tar Obama for being open to diplomacy with hostile governments, which means the usual "third way"--diplomacy--is not something he could advocate as a solution.

I don't know what kind of concessions the Russians could have gotten from the Americans, but I wouldn't be surprised if it involved support of Russia's claim to Arctic shipping lanes and drilling rights.

Answer 3

The situation resembles situation with Kosovo to some degree. Georgia is a former republic of Soviet Union, got its indepedence after colapse of USSR. On the territory of Georgia there were two provinces that wanted an independence from Georgia but they were never able to get it. Russia supported those provinces (South Osetia is one of them) the way USA supported Kosovo. In Georgia there was a dictator elected who, over the years, claimed territories of the provencies. This dictator tries to make Georgia a member of NATO. USA puts up with him because he sent his troops to Iraq and promises a cheap pipeline of gas to the West. One day this Geaorgian dictator gives order to his army to invade South Osetia and kill all who oppose his rule. Russia fights back supporting S.Osetia. US pissed off because US did not get Georgian cheap gas and Georgian troops are out of Iraq. There are no good guys in this story

Answer 4

I'm from republic of Georgia, I would like to tell you people that situation is really bad over here, but we are calm.

I'm sure that nobody believes Russian lies any more, the world knows what is going on here, they know we didn't want this war to come, we have children, families here - this is not our choice!

The war started because osetians opened fire on our villages, it was well organized provocation planned by Russians. In this situation we had nothing more to do then defend our citizens!

Russians are saying that their citizens live in osetia... this is ironic, if they are afraid for the life of their citizens they would have evacuated them as soon as the shooting started, all countries who care about their citizens are evacuating people from Georgia because situation is dangerous, so what do you think should America leave their citizens in Georgia and make up a reason to get involved in war, saying that "americans in republic of Georgia are endangered"?

One more question - what were russian citizens doing in osetia, where did they get Georgian vizas, as you know this is "De jure" Georgian territory so russian citizens had to get vizas while living there, otherwise they didn't had right to be in osetia!

And again comes a question - civilians in Cxinvali died because it was bombed, as you know our military airports were bombed beginning from august 8th, we couldn't take our planes in to air because of that, so how could we bomb Cxinvali? Cxinvali was bombed by Russians, they knew that civilians were still hiding in buildings, but they didn't care as long as they were destroying our soldiers, everything else (including human lives, lives of civilians: children, women) did not matter for them.

Russians are bombing our cities far away from conflict zone, they can't explain why they are doing this, they continued bombing our cities even after Medvedev anounced that the so called "operation for keeping peace in Georgia" was over - foreign journalists died while city Gori was bombed after his anouncement. on TV they are saying that are doing this because of military strategic objects (military airports, military bases) but actually they are bombing civilians, homes, children, women are dying here, two days ago a pregnant women died in city of Gori! my friend saved 4 year old girl from the basement of crushed building - this is the real face of so called Peace-keepers, this is the real face of Russia!

Russians are talking about Genocide of osetians - this is somewhat true, because they (russians) were the ones who bombed Cxinvali for 3 days - Cxinvali does not exist any more!

Georgians left Cxinvali because there was nothing more to defend, russians did not give a d**n that Osetian civilians (women, children) were hiding in the basements of buildings at the time there were bombing the city. Georgians asked for corridor to take civilians from Cxinvali to safe place.

I'm not thinking of leaving country, this is my HOME, my home country, I'm staying here because my husband, my friends are going to stay here to defend our country.

It's not about South Osetia any more... it never was, Russia wants to get hold of Georgia, but this pie is going to turn very bitter for Russians, we came to 21th century keeping our language, homeland and religion, fighting with number of conquerors and we will loose our lives before we loose our country, we'll defend Georgia to last breath!

The only way you people can help us right now, is to tell the world about what is going on in Georgia, everybody must know what Russia is doing here!

As long as God is on our side nobody can defeat us, we are defending our homes from people who killed children in Beslan, who killed their own citizens (hostages) in "Nord-Ost" incident.

Truth is on our side and we are more stronger and braver than ever!

Today as always I'm proud to be Georgian!

P.S. even now Russian troops are terrorizing Georgian citizens in villages near cxinvali, carrying out execution of civilians in their own houses, burning houses - this is Genocide.. open your eyes!

Answer 5

Russia needed reason to invade Georgia because of it's ambitions to become NATO and  EU member. Russia is afraid that in this case NATO will border it from the south also. S. Ossetia and Abkhazia are only reasons. on 1993 Russians made hundred of thousands of Georgians to leave their homes in this regions and become refugees in their own country. Many Georgians still live in S. Ossetia and abkhazia and Russians by shooting this Civilian Georgians provocated Georgian government which was trying to defend it's people and territory. Russia has a dream to become New world Leader and rebuild New Soviet Union!