Blast - Russia pressing Georgia on two fronts

This is a Blast Magazine special report with senior editor, Daniel Peleschuk, in Eastern Europe.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have advanced further into Georgian territory in the country’s northwest separatist enclave of Abkhazia, where reports say their forces have crossed the breakaway republic’s border and are occupying a town in Georgia proper.

Now pressuring the small country from two sides, Russian forces are raising the question of whether or not they will push further into Georgian territory.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on August 11 that his country has been cut in half by Russian forces, citing the Russian occupation of the central Georgian town of Gori, through which passes the only major roadway connecting the eastern and western parts of the country.

Saakashvili also appealed to the international community’s attention in what he called an “ethnic cleansing and annihilation of the ethnic Georgian population in Abkhazia.”

Video courtesy of The Boston Globe

Daniel Peleschuk is one of our founding members and a contributing editor. He can be reached at peleschuk.d@blastmagazine.com

In Culture, World News on August 11, 2008 at 17:58