Russia says they have 'liberated' Georgia - Russians are fast learners

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24153737-1702,00.html

Russian forces 'liberate' capital city

August 09, 2008 07:32pm

RUSSIA has "liberated" the capital of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia after President Dmitry Medvedev warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the area.

Russian and Georgian forces have been engaged in battle in the region for two days, after Georgia launched a large-scale offensive to restore control over the province. snip

Late today Russian forces claimed to have taken control of the South Ossetian capital.

"Tactical groups have fully liberated Tskhinvali from the Georgian military and have started pushing Georgian units beyond the zone of peacekeepers responsibility," said Russian ground forces commander Vladimir Boldyrev, according to local media.

[tabatha]

1. You mean South Ossetia?

[HawkerHurricane]

2. Fast? They've been doing it since the 1920's.

When they "Liberated" the Ukraine from "Czarists Reactionaries".

[Odin2005]

3. "Liberated" Georgia? Like how * "liberated" Iraq?

:eyes:

[Selatius]

4. The difference is South Ossetians really believe they have been liberated.

The Iraqis were far more ambivalent when the US first arrived compared to the arrival of Russian troops to South Ossetians. Let's be clear here that Russia is no good guy, but to conflate the US and Russia as interchangeable in terms of Iraq and South Ossetia ignores what the South Ossetians want.

The S. Ossetians fought a war of independence and won after driving out Georgian troops in the early 1990s after the fall of the USSR. When Georgian troops came back in August 2008 and bombarded their capital city of Tskhinvali, the Russians intervened, and they welcomed the intervention. The Iraqis were not so unified in welcoming the US invasion.