Saakashvili's hysterical propaganda aside, it is now evident that Russia's operation in Georgia was strictly limited to defending the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgian aggression. Consider the facts: Russia deployed just 6,000 troops in South Ossetia and 9,000 troops  in Abkhazia (and even these modest numbers are probably overstated by the press) against Georgia's 32,000 army.

According to Abkhazian government, the Georgians were massing forces at the nearby Senaki base. A small Russian paratrooper detachment, later shown on CNN, made a brief excursion to the recently-renovated Georgian military base near Senaki, located just a few miles outside of Abkhazia's border. This was the only move by Russian ground forces into the Georgia proper.


A South Ossetian woman wept as she embraced a Russian soldier in Tskhinvali. (Photo: Maxim Shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency)

Military experts estimate that a full-scale invasion of Georgia with the goal of “regime change” a la Bush in Iraq would have required at the very minimum 90,000 Russian troops. The number of aircraft employed by Russia – only 50 (mostly small Su-25 ground attack jets) – also confirms that it pursued strictly military targets of tactical nature.

It is absolutely mind-boggling that with NATO's intelligence-gathering capabilities in the region anyone in the West could have seriously considered Saakashvili's panic-stricken reports of Russian tanks near Tbilisi.

The Georgian army's embarrassing performance against a numerically-inferior Russian force is a major blow to the prestige of the US military, which spent the past decade training and arming the Georgians. Georgian soldiers ran faster than Spetsnaz could drive their BTRs and sometimes the Georgian army retreated even when there were no Russian troops in sight. Such was the case with the retreat of several thousand Georgian troops from Gori, witnessed by Western journalists. The following is an excerpt from a report by The Telegraph and Reuters reporters on the scene in Gori:

A Georgian official has said it is transferring "all its troops" from South Ossetia towards Tbilisi amid fighting in the city of Gori, about 35 miles to the south-east of the capital.

Georgians were witnessed by the Telegraph in a full scale disorganized and panicked retreat from Gori. They were crammed into vehicles heading down road from Gori to Tbilisi, the capital. They say 6,000-7,000 Russian troops are heading their way and the Georgians are abandoning their positions.

Kakha Lomaia, a senior Georgian security official, said: "We received very reliable information that the Russians decided to move towards Gori. That's why we decided to pull out all our troops and to relocate them - to defend Tbilisi."

Lomaia has since claimed that Russian forces have "captured" the city. However a Reuters reporter in Gori said: "We are right now driving through the town and I see no trace of troops or military vehicles. It is absolutely deserted."  (“Georgia: Russia fighting on several fronts as Georgian troops withdraw to defend Tbilisi”, by Damien McElroy and Adrian Blomfield, The Telegraph, August 12, 2008)

Apparently, the Georgian army in Gori – one of the country's largest cities and the home to a major Georgian military base – ran in panic upon hearing rumors of a possible Russian attack. In just three-and-a-half days a smaller Russian force not only repelled Georgia's carefully-planned attack against South Ossetia's capital, but forced the entire Georgian army into a disorganized retreat back to Tbilisi.


Saakashvili was touring Gori when a Russian jet flew overhead. The Commander-in-Chief of Georgia's Armed Forces screeched "Let's get out of here!" and then dropped to the ground and covered his head in front of dozens Western journalists, all of whom remained standing and taking photos. (Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times)

Judging by the photos from the fighting zone, Russian forward units were limited almost exclusively to GRU Spetsnaz and VDV troops with light armored vehicles, supported by a small number of ground attack planes and helicopter gunships. Few of the heavy tanks and artillery, shown by CNN and BBC crossing into South Ossetia from Russia, actually entered combat.

In other news, Ramzan Kadyrov – a former Chechen warlord, now the president of Chechnya and the leader of his personal and very sizable private army – offered Russia up to ten thousand trained Chechen fighters to defend South Ossetia from Georgia. Ten thousand armed-to-the-teeth Chechens is all that's needed to turn the region into a complete madhouse. The Russian military politely declined this generous offer from their former foe.


GRU Spetsnaz (you can tell it by the weapons they are carrying) arrived in the Khurcha settlement in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. (Photo: Reuters)

Russia has made it clear to the West that it will be seeking to unseat Saakashvili. Also, statements by senior Russian Foreign Ministry officials suggest that Moscow no longer supports Georgia's territorial integrity. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gregory Karasin told the Russian news agency Interfax that the future status of South Ossetia will now depend entirely on the wishes of its residents. Following Georgia's sneak attack against South Ossetia that claimed more than 2,000 civilian lives, the wishes of Ossetians are now crystal clear.

For now, the lower house of the Russian Parliament agreed not to hold a vote on recognizing South Ossetia's independence until the end of military action in the region. There is little doubt, however, that when the vote goes forward – and its outcome is easy to predict – it will be promptly pushed through the Federation Council and supported by the government. Saakashvili's attempt to retake South Ossetia by terrorizing its civilian population has backfired and now it is obvious that Georgia lost both South Ossetia and Abkhazia forever.

Now Medvedev and Putin will sit back and let the French do all the peace negotiating their heart desires, while occasionally bombing targets in Georgia, as well as maintaining travel restrictions and economic sanctions against the country. Russia will also continue to pursue Saakashvili on the charges of war crimes and genocide. Following Saakashvili's military action against South Ossetia, Georgia's chances of joining the NATO went from slim to none. The EU flags Saakashvili used to stage his propaganda speeches will be as close as Georgia will come to joining the European Union in the foreseeable future.