Current situation in the country of Georgia

Question

My is a bit complicated & at this point I'm sure there's really no correct answer. Anyways my question is before the start of the fighting were all troops in the two breakaway states in Georgia loyal to the breakaway governments or were some still loyal to Georgia? Had Georgia sede the land pulling all troops loyal out up until when they invaded to retake the territory or were there still troops in the territories already in the breakaway states and more just arrived to help take back the states. Also in the first place Russian troops were suppose to be there on peace keeping yet is obviously biased against Georgia so how does that work. I frankly cant tell any of the sides apart. I find myself scratching my head.

Answer 1

The South Ossetia "peacekeeping" force included Russians, Georgians and Ossetians. The recent mass Georgian military incursion (invasion?) meant many troops flooding into the area beyond the peacekeeping mandate.

I put "peacekeeping" in quotes because from what I have seen each faction was primarily serving as armed guards of their respective enclaves of citizens to prevent ethnic cleansing.  There have been many violent incidents between the 'peacekeeping' groups since 1992 but not all out war like this.

Tensions have been building substantially over the past several months with Russia shooting down a Georgian UAV,  many Russian troops staging and conducting exercises along the Georgian border and a a somewhat higher rate of skirmishes between "peacekeeping" forces.

While it appears Georgia started this war by violating the terms of the peacekeeping agreement, we can't really know the details at this point and might never know. Perhaps Ossetian militants started bombing Georgians and Georgia thought this was the beginning of a Russian invasion.  Perhaps Georgia was just tired of the situation and figured Russia would try a diplomatic approach to restore quasi-autonomy to Ossetia after the incursion leaving Georgia in a stronger negotiating position.

Fact is though, Russia HAS bombed areas well outside of Ossetia, and has also blockaded Georgia's Black Sea coastline. Allegedly Russian troops are also harrying Georgian troops that are attempting to withdraw, so I find the claim of simply wanting to push the Georgian troops out and protect civilians in South Ossetia rather disingenuous.

both nations are being rather naughty, and of course thousands of civilians pay the price.

The other sepratist region in Georgia, Abkhazia has a population of 200,000 and at least 50,000 Georgians.  

South Ossetia has a population of 70,000, 14,000 of which consider themselves Georgians, not Ossetians.  The province is very poor, and I don't understand why Georgia even wants to hang onto it, except historically (pre-Soviet era) Ossetia was a part of Georgia, and Georgia feels some responsibility towards protecting the Georgians who live there.

Strategically, Georgia also probably doesn't want the defacto Russian border to be within 40km of the Georgian capital (Tbilisi). With South Ossetia under Georgian control the border would be more like 160km away from Tbilisi.

No matter who is in control of South Ossetia or Abkhazia, some sizable chunk of the population in those areas will be unhappy and will probaby take it on the chin in terms of ethnic cleansing.

Journalists in Georgia report convoys of civilian families pouring into Georgia proper from South Ossetia. These refugees are doubtlessly form South Ossetia residents whose allegiance is with Georgia and who fear (have experienced?) violence at the hands of the Russians, or perhaps Ossetians since the conflict began. As usual, there is no peaceful answer that does not involve a great deal of supervision from a disinterested third party state or states.

Answer 2

There are no ossetian or abkhazian troops loyal to Georgia. Georgia sent its inner forces to attack S.Ossetia.

Russian troops were not biased against Georgians when they were put  there  in 1992. The current Georgian president Saakashvili made them so. And Russian forces did keep peace there since 1994, for 16 years.

Answer 3

AngryCat is correct.  The whole mess was started by that idiot Georgia president who fired the first shot last Thursday at the eve of Olympic Game, while Puttin was in Beijing and Russian president was on vacation. That idiot thought Uncle Sam would step in to clean up his mess (just like the Israel might do with Iran down the road). No matter how western world protests and criticizes Russia, this time the truth is on Russia's side if Uncle Sam wants to show the world he is fair, honest, descent and unbiased. When a shot is fired, in the history of mankind, there has never been any unproportional defense, but strong, determined and just retaliation.