Russia accuses Georgian leadership of ethnic cleansing

Russian officials accuse Georgian officials of ethnic cleansing and declare them war criminals, saying Georgians killed 1500 civilians in Tskhinvali region.

Russians demanded that Georgian president stepped down and promised to take his case to the Russian court.

It remains unclear, why only Georgian side should be blamed of all the civilian deaths, while the Russian forces were involved in the conflict directly and not only on ground, but also through intensive air attacks.

Moreover, international organizations said the numbers that are being announced by Russian officials were exaggerated. What makes the numbers even more suspicious, is that the numbers announced by Russians never changed since the first day of the conflict. Does that imply that despite the war was going on for several days, not a single person was killed, after Russian military presence became enormous?

Even if we assume that 1500 were indeed killed, the Russian argument still looks very week, taking into account, the Russian army has killed 80,000 civilians just in Groznyi, Chechnya, not to mention the deaths in the rest of the Russian region. Moreover, in case of Chechnya, no other state except for Russia was involved.

Certainly, before declaring Georgian officials war criminals, Russians have to do the same to the Russian officials, including Putin. Putin not only was an official during the war in Chechnya, but the mass killings in Chechnya also contributed significantly to his rating in Russia and to strengthening the imperialistic ideology.

Had the west stopped Russia in Chechnya or earlier in Georgia, in the 1990ies, would then the Georgian nation, including ethnic Ossetians, have to suffer so much? I doubt…

More civilians became victims to Russian bombings after Medvedev ordered cease fire

Today Medvedev declared that Russian operation has ended.

However, later Russian bombs killed at least 6 civilians, including one child, who were traveling a mini-bus not far from Khashuri in central Georgia.

Shortly before Medvedev’s declaration, Russians bombed the center of the city of Gori, killing at least four people, including a Dutch journalist of RTL. There’s also an Israeli journalist among the injured.

More bombings have been reported during the day. These included bombing three Georgian tanks that were on their way back to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

Meanwhile, western-Georgian cities Zugdidi and Senaki still remain under Russian occupation, as well as both breakaway regions. Cases of robbery by Russian army in the Georgian cities are already documented by journalists.

Concerning the conflict regions – the remaining ethnic Georgians were ousted from Abkhazia. Russians still haven’t stopped attacking the Kodori gorge, where few Georgian soldiers were remaining together with local population. Most of the civilians have escaped the district, while the rest are being killed. All the remaining population escaped from the Gali district of the Abkhazian region as well.

Also it has been announced that the killing of two Georgian journalists in Tskhinvali by Russians earlier this week was intentional and that this can be proofed.