By Aleksandr Rodgers
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard
 cross posted with http://www.stalkerzone.org/aleksandr-rodgers-the-war-of-08-08-08-and-ten-years-of-struggle-for-russian-sovereignty/
source: https://jpgazeta.ru/aleksandr-rodzhers-voyna-08-08-08-i-desyat-let-borbyi-za-suverenitet-rossii/

In reality, those processes that we now observe didn’t arrive “suddenly”, but developed (and were being prepared) over a long period of time.

And although on August 8th, 2018, it is ten years since 08.08.08, we will start the conversation with other events.

Because officially it is a completely different date, namely February 10th, 2007 – the Munich speech of Putin, that can be considered as the official beginning of events that followed. Where he, for the first time, described for the entire planet:

  • the injustice of the existing global system;
  • the fact that China already overtakes the US, and BRIC overtakes the EU;
  • the inevitability of the end of the unipolar world;
  • the need to put an end to the arbitrariness of the US, which leans on brute force;
  • his disagreement with injustice.

If to look at the video, it is possible to see that many in the hall smiled and thought that Putin jokes (how can it be possible to protest against American hegemony – it’s unheard of!). But he wasn’t joking.

It is clear that this speech of Putin was not spontaneous, and it was preceded by big preparation (removing “semibankirschina“ from power, cancellation of the Production Sharing Agreement, reforming the army, and so on). But most laypeople think in the category “if I don’t see something, then it does not exist”.

That’s why the events on August 8th, 2008 were a surprise for them.

On August 8th the American puppet Mikheil Saakashvili, who came to power in Georgia as a result of an illegal coup (called by propagandists as the “Rose Revolution”), ordered his troops – armed and trained according to NATO standards (and on American money) – to perform a punitive operation against the inhabitants of South Ossetia, having started to massively shell the capital of the republic – Tskhinvali.

In the city there were Russian peacekeepers, which had a UN mandate, and such aggression, according to the plan of the American owners of Saakashvili, had to show Russia “its place”. But something went astray.

According to the plan (approved, among other things, by the former Minister of Defence of Georgia Irakli Okruashvili), the Georgian army had to firstly carry out the large-scale bombing of Tskhinvali and the surrounding villages by means of long-range artillery and MLRS, and then, after defeating the not numerous Ossetian army (in total about 3,000 people), to start ethnic cleaning.

In order to implement this plan the US developed a large-scale program of training the Georgian army – its main focus was on “anti-insurgent actions”.

In particular, the British “Financial Times” newspaper openly wrote that 80 Georgian special forces members were trained by American instructors by the order of the Pentagon according to a program that was tested in Croatia in 1995 within the framework of the operation of the Croatian armed forces for the capture of Serbian Krajina. The FT noted that this operation was one of the worst episodes of ethnic cleaning in the history of the Yugoslavian war (since Vietnam the Americans have had a wide experience of war against a peaceful and unarmed population, much like their current Banderist lackeys).

During Saakashvili’s reign, Georgia increased its military budget by 30-fold (at the same time, ordinary Georgians outside the capital survived on $30-40 a month, which is below the norms of the UN for absolute poverty). If in 2003 military expenses of the state budget of Georgia were $30 million (0.7% of GDP), then in 2007 it was already $940 million (8% of GDP). For comparison, now in NATO the standard is 2%, and even this is too much for the majority of member countries, which thus don’t implement it).

In 2008 the military expenses of Georgia totalled $990 million, which exceeded a quarter of the entire state budget of this poor country! All of this, of course, was done contrary to the interests of ordinary Georgians and at their expense.

At the same time, Georgia received some weapons from Ukraine by bypassing standard procedures. It happened at the personal order of Viktor Yushchenko – one more American puppet (who also came to power as a result of a “soft” coup d’etat inspired by the US).

But all of this preparation didn’t help.

It should be noted that the Ossetian conflict was preceded by the illegal recognition of the independence of Kosovo. On February 17th, 2008 the independence of Kosovo was declared, and on the next day it was recognised by a number of the countries – first of all, the US.

The recognition of the independence of Kosovo caused an extremely negative reaction in the leadership of Russia, President Putin at the summit of the CIS countries on February 22rd said: “The Kosovo precedent is a horrifying precedent. <…> Those who do it don’t foresee the results of what they do. Finally, this is a double-edged sword, and the second edge will one day hit them on the head”.

Since the end of July, 2008 the Georgian army starts to shell the settlements of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Since August 1st the Prime Minister of South Ossetia Yury Morozov starts the partial evacuation of the residents of Tskhinvali.

On August 7th the Georgian army tried to occupy Prisi heights around Tskhinvali, but this attack was repelled. On the same day the American ambassador in Georgia John Tefft reported to Washington that the troops of Georgia, including units with MLRS “Grad”, move in the direction of South Ossetia.

In the afternoon of August 7th, 2008 the secretary of the Security Council of South Ossetia Anatoly Barankevich stated: “The activity of Georgian troops is observed along the entire border with South Ossetia. All of this says that Georgia starts large-scale aggression against our republic“.

At 2 o’clock in the morning on August 8th, 2008 the Georgian army, hoping that Russia won’t react to aggression during the Olympic Games, started an offensive.

On the morning of August 8th the commander of Georgian “peacekeepers” Mamuka Kurashvili called the actions of Georgia in South Ossetia “an operation on restoring constitutional order in the Tskhinvali region”. Later, in October, 2008, during enquiries into the August events in the Georgian parliament, Kurashvili stated that his words were impulsive and weren’t authorised by the top political leadership of Georgia (they always start trembling when the time comes to answer).

Later, Saakashvili tried to lie by saying that the war started after “the offensive of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine”. By this he implied the departure of ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation from Sevastopol, which took place several days before the beginning of the Georgian offensive (in general, they regularly depart ports for raids, and there is never any aggression).

Also, Saakashvili lied by saying that “the president of Ukraine Yushchenko tried to stop by his decree the Black Sea Fleet, but Russia ignored it”. In reality, Yushchenko’s decree appeared only on August 13th, i.e., 5 days after the beginning of the war, and already after the President of Russia Medvedev officially announced the termination of the military operation aimed at coercive peacemaking.

Having gobbled up his tie, overdosed on cocaine, changed his pants after fleeing from the“invisible Russian jets”, and again overdosed on cocaine, Saakashvili raved that:

  • “the Georgian army forced Russian generals to flee from the battlefield for the first time since World War II” (I am not joking, he spurted this out in all seriousness);
  • “95% of the efficient part of the Armed Forces of Russia fought against Georgia”;
  • “the 58th Russian army was actually burned by the 4th Georgian brigade”;
  • “when the 58th army was defeated, Russia used ground and air forces. They fired more than half their ‘Iskander’ ammo”;
  • and so on.

In general, Saakashvili is a worthy colleague of the alcoholic Poroshenko in terms of killing brains via substance abuse, as well as in terms of “destroying Russian armies in words”.

Everybody laughed, but only at the words of the little fool Saakashvili.

Because as a result of Georgian aggression (which, by the way, had the code name “Clear Field”, which openly hints at the intention to carry out the genocide of Ossetians and Abkhazians), which started at 00:15 Moscow time on August 8th with the “Grad” shelling of Tskhinvali, 15 Russian peacekeepers died (and about 40 were wounded), and about 1600 peaceful citizens of South Ossetia were killed (and almost as much wounded). The “Human Rights Watch” human rights organisation confirmed the fact of the destruction of the Russian peacekeeping posts in Tskhinvali and Khetagurovo.

At 00:30 Moscow time the commander of the operations of the armed forces of Georgia General Mamuka Kurashvili announced on the air of the “Rustavi-2” TV channel that, in connection with the refusal of the Ossetian side to hold talks on the stabilisation of the situation in the conflict zone, the Georgian side “made the decision to restore constitutional order in the conflict zone”, which completely disproves the latest Georgian insinuations – that Ossetians and/or Russians attacked first.

At 10:00 on August 8th the Georgian state Minister for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili called on Russia to “act as a real peacekeeper” and stated that “Georgia controls almost all the settlements of South Ossetia, except Tskhinvali and Dzhava”.

On the morning of August 8th Russian aircraft started bombing military facilities on the territory of Georgia: the military base in Gori; the airfields of Vaziani and Marneuli, where Su-25 and L-39 planes, as well as a radar station 40 kilometers from Tbilisi were based.

At 14:30 Moscow time, the first unit of the Russian army – the 1st battalion of the 135th regiment – passed through the Roki tunnel.

At about 17:00 the Foreign Minister of Georgia Eka Tkeshelashvili called on foreign countries to put pressure on the Russian government in order to stop “direct military aggression” on the territory of Georgia. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in reply reminded that on the morning of August 8th Georgia called on Russia to act as a peacekeeper. “So that’s what we are doing,” said Lavrov.

On the morning of August 9th the 76th Guards Air Assault Division based in Pskov was transferred to the area of military operations. Russian ships entered the territorial waters of Georgia and started fighting the patrol.

On August 10th the ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation sank two Georgian combat kayaks.

On August 11th the “proud Georgians” fled.

By the way, even when the Georgian army carried out a cunning strategic manoeuvre under the name “chaotic escape”, the grant-eating Georgian media continued to report that:

  • “as a result of fighting in the Tskhinvali region the Russian 58th army lost 1789 soldiers, 105 tanks, 81 fighting vehicles, 45 armoured troop-carriers, 10 ‘Grad’ units, and 5 ‘Smerch’ units”;

or

  • “in Georgia there are so many corpses of Russian soldiers that they aren’t transported back to Russia” (compare to the fake information about the losses of Russians in Donbass and in Syria – the similarity of propaganda methods is obvious).

In reality everything is on the contrary: it is the Georgian armed forces that didn’t take any action to recover the corpses of their perished soldiers from Tskhinvali region, and some of the perished Georgian military personnel were buried in mass graves without being identified (compare to the cauldrons in Donbass and several thousand anonymous graves of UAF soldiers).

But all of this is just details. The main thing is that on 08.08.08 Russia showed to the whole world (not only Georgia) that:

  • it won’t allow genocide to be carried out on its borders;
  • it won’t allow its soldiers to be killed with impunity any more;
  • it is ready to pursue an independent policy (both internal and external);
  • the Russian army isn’t in ruins at all and not as destroyed as the West thought, but completely on the contrary – it is capable of destroying in literally several days a NATO army armed with American weapons and trained by American military advisers;
  • Russians can’t be pushed around; it is only possible to reach an agreement with Russians.

The first milestone is the Munich speech of Putin.

The second milestone is the defeat of the Georgian army under the howling and hysterics of the West.

The third milestone is the failure of the “Bolotnaya Square“ attempt at a white ribbon coup.

The fourth milestone is the return of Crimea.

The fifth milestone is the uprising in Donbass.

The sixth milestone is the essential strengthening of the presence of the state in the economy of Russia, especially in strategic spheres.

The seventh milestone is the crushing of Anglo-Saxon proxies (ISIS, al-Nusra, and other puppet terrorists) in Syria.

The eighth milestone is transferring the vector of activity further away from its borders – to Africa (in addition to the Central African Republic, at least four other African countries).

The ninth milestone is the dumping of American debt papers (treasuries).

And there are many other smaller and not so noticeable steps, like: the emergence of new types of weapons; accession to various international organisations, contracts and associations (trade and economic, as well as security contours), as well as the involvement in these organisations of new countries; import substitution; the introduction of the “foreign agent” status; the creation of its own payment system; and many other things.

And all of this is on the way to the restoration of the sovereignty and greatness of Russia.

But at first there was Munich and 08.08.08.