Yesterday, I said that Sarkozy’s visit would present the logical point for Russia to end this conflict. That appears to be happening:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced Tuesday that he has ordered an end to military operations against Georgia.
The announcement came minutes before French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to land in Moscow to meet with Medvedev to negotiate terms for a possible cease-fire.
“I have reached a decision to halt the operation to force the Georgian authorities to peace,” Medvedev said. “The aggressor has been punished and has incurred very significant losses. Its armed forces are disorganized.”
“The statement on the halt of the military action by Russia is the news we had expected. It’s good news,” Sarkozy said, according to an Interfax report.
The decision ends five days of fighting that began in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia and spread well into Georgia.
Now it gets interesting. Russia has to follow through on this pledge. They also have to pull their forces back to their August 6th positions and I have yet to see a Russian commitment to doing that.
At some point Georgia’s place in the Western alliance will either be secured rapidly, to eliminate the possibility of further Russian aggression, or they’ll essentially be abandoned. I fear the latter but we’ll know soon enough. Russia’s position, on the other hand, is now enhanced significantly.
Others Blogging:
James Joyner
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered what the press is describing as a “cease-fire” in Georgia. Given that he is not withdrawing Russian forces and is going to keep killing Georgian troops in South Ossetia in violation of international law, however, that term doesn’t quite seem to fit.
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August 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
This isn’t in violation of any international law for one. This is war, and one that involves eastern cultures with a far different history, not liberal, idealistic western lawmakers. Since most people are just getting their information from the media and believing what CNN and BSNBC are telling them consider this; Georgia picked the wrong fight at the wrong time. They’ve been on their “highhorse” for a long time now and thought NATO would bail them out, even though they’re not in NATO. Secondly, Moscow isn’t going to allow Georgia to retain strategically valuable terrain where we MIGHT have put up a missile shield (since that had been talked about). The Georgian government thought it could provoke the big dog and nothing would ever happen because someone would intervene and that’s not going to happen. Democrats definitely wouldn’t approve of any military OPS in Georgia to help, but they’ll give lip service to it. Basically this is a small dose of reality. Laws and Treaties and such apply when people choose to abide by them. Many people will not make that choice.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Georgian government’s appeals are not to be trusted.
Media coverage of this situation is not to be trusted.
White House adresses on the subject are not to be trusted.
Keep a cool head over their rhetoric, study the facts,
learn the proper chronology, filter out inconsistencies,
weed out the outright demagogy and propaganda,
listen to the reports from eyewitnesses, watch the actual footage of the Georgian attack on Tskhinval
that left thousands of innocent civilians dead, and their town and villages leveled,
find out what the officials are not saying.
I did just that and now support Russia as the only party
in the region truly interested in delivering security and peace to the South Ossetians.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Shame on you Russia! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size like the U.S. or China?