Military conflict between Russia and Georgia escalates
By Ann Talbot 11 August 2008
The war that erupted August 7 between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia escalated over the weekend. Some 2,000 people are thought to have been killed, according to estimates given by both sides. Tens of thousands have been injured or driven from their homes by shelling and air attacks.
The US-backed regime in Tbilisi sent troops into South Ossetia last Thursday and carried out bombing attacks on the capital of Tskhinvali in an attempt to reassert Georgian control over the breakaway region, which has exercised de facto self-rule since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has deployed “peacekeeping” troops in the region, which is allied with Moscow against the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
In the face of a large-scale military response by Russia, Georgia claims to have withdrawn its forces from South Ossetia. Russian forces are now in control of Tskhinvali, the republic’s capital.
Underlying the military confrontation is US imperialism’s drive to isolate Russia and establish American hegemony over the energy resources of Central Asia and their transit routes through the Caucasus, utilizing the Saakashvili regime as its cat’s paw. The Russian ruling elite, for its part, is seeking to reassert its control over a region that was ruled by Moscow for two centuries before the break-up of the USSR. [more]