Russia/Georgia Situation News & Updates

Originally posted by chips
They're either making this up as they go along, or we're witnessing modern military strategic genius.

That's my feeling as well. Either these are actions of a Russian commander in the field, fighting against a soft Georgian resistance and seeing how far he can get into Georgia, or there is some kind of a brilliant master plan. But surely not business as usual in any case.

www.breitbart.com...

Georgian president's Web site moves to Atlanta
The Web site of the president of Georgia, the small nation that is battling Russian forces over a breakaway enclave, was moved to a U.S. hosting facility this weekend after allegedly being attacked by Russian hackers.

The original servers located in the country of Georgia were "flooded and blocked by Russians" over the weekend, Nino Doijashvili, chief executive of Atlanta-based hosting company Tulip Systems Inc., said Monday.

The Georgian-born Doijashvili happened to be on vacation in Georgia when fighting broke out on Friday. She cold-called the government to offer her help and transferred president.gov.ge and rustavi2.com, the Web site of a prominent Georgian TV station, to her company's servers Saturday.

Speaking via cell phone from Georgia, Doijashvili said the attacks, traced to Moscow and St. Petersburg, are continuing on the U.S. servers. The president's site was intermittently available midday Monday. Route-tracing performed by the AP confirmed that the sites were hosted at Tulip.

Steven Adair, one of the volunteers at the U.S.-based Shadowserver Foundation, which tracks Internet attacks, said they had noticed commands to attack Georgian sites over the weekend being issued to "botnets," or networks of computers that have been surreptitiously subverted by hackers. The computers are used to send bogus traffic to targeted sites, slowing them down or in some cases bringing them down.

The president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, lent space on his own English-language Web site to Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, after a request.

Kaczynski says in the note posted Monday that "the Russian Federation is blocking Georgian Internet portals."

Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., company that maps the pathways of the Internet, said the routes to Georgia showed intermittent problems over the weekend.

The country's Internet connections run over the neighboring countries of Turkey and Azerbaijan. The connection to Azerbaijan continues through Russia before connecting to the Internet at large, but Renesys saw "no apparent attempts to limit traffic via Russia," according to Earl Zmijewski, general manager of Renesys' Internet data division.

U.S. envoy accuses Russia of planning invasion

TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia prepared in advance for an invasion of Georgia, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza told journalists after flying into Tbilisi on Monday.

"We heard statements saying that the Russian railroad troops that entered Abkhazia a couple of months ago were there for a humanitarian mission," he told journalists at the airport.

"Now we know the truth that these forces were there to rebuild the railway to allow ammunition and other military supplies to aid a Russian invasion."

(REUTERS)

Genius it is then.

Originally posted by -Rugged Shark-
Maybe we'll see that Russia is going to fly in reinforcements to their newly acquired Senaki airbase and then head for Poti... Time will tell I suppose, but I sure hope that they'll reach a ceasefire before anything else happens.

Nope. Senaki has nothing to do with Poti. The two cities are over 100 miles apart, separating by rough mountainous roads. Heck - Russian territory in North Ossetia is closer to Poti than Senaki.

This is something else. 1,000 troops and 150 pieces of armor does not an occupation force make - not against 30,000 plus Georgian troops. It would be the smallest occupation force in history.

As I said before - watch town of Kaspi now. It lies between Gori and Tbilisi - only 14 miles from Gori. Russians would have to pass through there if they were going to Tbilisi - there is one road to Tbilisi surrounded by mountains.

I am more than sure there are reporters there. So if the Russian troops are not in Gori, and not in Kaspi, where are they? Back in Tskhinvalli after kicking Georgians out of Gori perhaps?

CNN is just reporting that Gori is now being evacuated by Georgian forces due to the Russian siege of the city.

[edit on 11-8-2008 by Terrapop]

Forgive me if this has already been said but I have read three or four British news papers today and they all seemed biased towards Georgia. Some papers only had one page of coverage on it also, as if this isnt a big deal. I have to get most of my updates from this very thread. Good job with the updates. .

Originally posted by Terrapop
CNN is just reporting that Gori is now being evacuated by Georgian forces due to the Russian siege of the city.

[edit on 11-8-2008 by Terrapop]

Ahh good old siege tactic...guess they are practicing for Tbilisi.

reply to post by Terrapop


I'm getting that, too: via Sky News' reporter on the ground.

He also said there is reports that Russia has opened up another front and is ploughing more troops into the area - but couldn't confirm any more.

Sky News Breaking :RUSSIAN TROOPS HAVE OCCUPIED ZUGDIDI

reply to post by freemindmine


That news is 4 hours old. They have been occupying just the police station there for some time now.

conspiracy theory:

what if

georgia and the US had this planned - but since evidence of genocide the US is backing away from supporting Georgia ; and what if - in Georgia`s last moments - the recordings of these meetings and promises come out into the open....

Originally posted by maloy
Nope. Senaki has nothing to do with Poti. The two cities are over 100 miles apart, separating by rough mountainous roads. Heck - Russian territory in North Ossetia is closer to Poti than Senaki.

Sorry maloy, but Senaki and Poti are only 20 miles apart. And there are no high mountains to climb over, it's pretty much flat...

Originally posted by freemindmine
Sky News Breaking :RUSSIAN TROOPS HAVE OCCUPIED ZUGDIDI

My predictions come true....well brace for more occupations to come...

[edit on 11/8/08 by asen_y2k]

Originally posted by -Rugged Shark-
Sorry maloy, but Senaki and Poti are only 20 miles apart. And there are no high mountains to climb over, it's pretty much flat...

Look on the map again. They are 100 miles apart. I am sure of this.

And there are mountains throughout Georgia.

AP/SKY TV: Witnesses say Russian troops have occupied local Georgian Interior Ministry in Zugdidi - Russian troops open up second front by crossing over from Abkhazia.

- REPORTS from Georgian military: Goria has been taken.

AFP: Georgian President addresses nation on Georgian TV: Russia now controls most of Georgia. (SKY TV)

[edit on 11-8-2008 by chips]

To clarify in case some people missed the last few pages, the Zugdidi and Senaki occupations are confirmed, though they appear to be limited to an air base and a police station. The Gori occupation, however, has not been confirmed. In fact, Reuters witnesses said that Gori was abandoned, contrary to Georgia's statement that it had been occupied. However a CNN news crew in Gori did confirm that Georgian forces had fled Gori.

We don't know yet whether Gori has been captured. It has certainly been rendered defenseless, however.

In addition:

The UN refugee agency said earlier that 80 percent of the 50,000 population of Gori had fled the city because of Russian attacks. Georgian officials said that Russian jets had earlier bombed the city.

www.afp.com...

[edit on 8/11/2008 by AceWombat04]

reply to post by maloy


I looked at it again, no mountainess terrain north of the river, distance roughly 20 miles from Senaki.

See Screenshot

Originally posted by chips
AFP: Georgian President addresses nation on Georgian TV: Russia now controls most of Georgia. (SKY TV)

Ok - if this is true then we have just seen some of the most brilliant military action in history - occupation of a country in a single day with very limited armor, limited fighting, and few Russian losses.

Something tells me the Georgian government is now resorting to the last chapter of the information war - Yell to everyone that you are done for and breakdown crying.

Originally posted by -Rugged Shark-
I looked at it again, no mountainess terrain north of the river, distance roughly 20 miles from Senaki.

Ok I had Poti and Gori confused.

I was talking about them using Senaki to advance on Gori.

Concerning Poti: nothing in the city yet. Georgia is pulling in its heaviest troops to Tbilisi. If Russians want to, they can probably roll through Poti right now. Georgia does not have concentrated defenses there.