Georgia: Russian Roulette

With the Georgian government reporting that Tbilisi International Airport has been bombed and that 6,000 Russian troops have entered its territory along with a further 4,000 landing in Abkhazia, A Fistful of Euros says that Moscow was well prepared for a conflict over South Ossetia. Indeed, the blog asks, was Georgia played?

Well, the South Ossetia conflict is going pretty badly for Georgia. The Russians appear to have cleared Tsikhinvali, and they’ve moved over six! hundred! armored vehicles into theater. Russian bombers have struck at a number of military targets inside Georgia, and the Russian Navy is maneuvering off the Georgian coast.

It’s increasingly clear that the Russians were very ready for this conflict. In fact it’s looking like the Georgians did exactly what Moscow wanted.

Was Georgia played? We’ll probably never know, but a couple of thoughts come to mind.

[…]

Does that sound paranoid? Well, pause for a moment and recall the professional background of Russia’s current Prime Minister. Putin and the siloviki around him are intelligence guys, former and present. This seems like the sort of game they’d play, and play well.

Speaking of Putin, as blogger Wu Wei pointed out this morning, he’s the guy who’s flying into theater to oversee military and intelligence operations in person — despite the fact that this is officially, formally the responsibility of Russia’s President, not its Prime Minister. Interesting, no?