Word: tbilisi
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...time - until Georgia offered up a golden opportunity last Friday. By invading its neighbor, Russia has crossed the Rubicon, demonstrating that the Caucasus sit squarely and solely in Russia's sphere of influence. Moscow's long-term objectives in Georgia no doubt are to install a friendly government in Tbilisi (it has tried more than once to do that since Georgian independence), keep Georgia out of NATO, stop the flow of arms into Chechnya and take control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the only important export route from the Caspian that does not pass through Russia...
...eyes of many, increasingly obvious, we now have the definitive answer: authoritarian at home, brooking no consequential political opposition, and increasingly aggressive abroad. The Russian war against the small, Caucasus state of Georgia had been frozen in time for the past 16 years (Russian troops last fought in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, in 1992) until Putin began it in earnest again this past weekend, sending in air strikes far beyond the disputed territory of South Ossetia...
...bench smoking cigarettes. Some carry plastic red-white-and-blue-striped rice bags. The few recruiters who agree to be interviewed tell similar stories. They accuse the American and Western press of lying about the events in Georgia. No one believes that the Russians have invaded Georgia and that Tbilisi and other cities have been bombed. Because the Russian press has not reported it, they say, it cannot be true. A rumor widely circulated is that black soldiers have been spotted fighting on the Georgian side. This is seen as incontrovertible evidence that America is helping Georgia with military...
...When Saakashvili unleashed a massive artillery-and-rocket barrage on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali last Thursday night, the Russian response was all too predictable: having jealously guarded the territory's autonomy from Georgia as a point of leverage against Tbilisi's desire to join NATO, Moscow launched an offensive of its own, fighting Georgian forces inside South Ossetia and bombing cities inside Georgia proper. Meanwhile, separatist forces in Abkhazia, another Moscow-backed separatist Georgian province, opened a second front against Georgian forces, while Russia's Back Sea Fleet sailed from its base in Ukraine to impose a naval...
...heat on a Western-leaning Georgia, since September 2006, by severing mail and transportation links between the two countries, closing Russian markets to Georgian wine and other key exports. Many Georgian businesses got closed in Russia, with Georgians rounded up and forcibly deported. The Russian Embassy was withdrawn from Tbilisi, coming back only in January 2007. Georgian ships were denied the right of entry to Russian ports. Natural gas prices, raised from $110 up to $235, sealed the tight economic blockade clamped on Georgia...