Russia: US gave nod to Georgia

PRESS TV
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Russia says that Georgia’s attack on the independence-seeking region of South Ossetia was likely executed with the United States’ approval.

“It is hard to imagine that (Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili embarked on this risky venture without some sort of approval from the side of the United States,” Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told Russia’s NTV television on Wednesday.

Meanwhile on the same day, an official in the delegation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Georgia’s president was “mad” to try to crush separatists in South Ossetia, and he fell into a “vulgar” trap that led to war.

“Saakashvili was mad enough to go in the middle of the night and bomb a city,” the official told reporters overnight on condition of anonymity. The result is “a Georgia attacked, pulverized, through its own fault,” he added.

“The Georgians fell into a vulgar trap. They thought that (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin would not retaliate in the middle of the Olympic Games,” the official said.

Contrary to Tbilisi’s expectations, Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s reaction was too heavy-handed. “They sent in the Russian army and liquidated the opposing army,” the official added.

France’s Sarkozy — whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union — brokered an outline peace deal on Tuesday and the early hours of Wednesday to end fighting sparked by Tbilisi’s decision to regain control of South Ossetia by force.

Russia's troops overran their Georgian enemy, forcing them out of South Ossetia and helping the separatists drive out Georgian forces in another independence-seeking region, Abkhazia, before moving further into Georgian territory.