Retrograde Advance
Russian forces held more maneuvers within tens of kilometers of Tbilisi over the weekend. The movement started on Saturday, a few hours after Medvedev signed the ceasefire agreement obliging Russia to take its troops out of Georgian territory. But there was an entirely different picture on the ground in the 100 kilometers between Gori and Tbilisi. Columns of heavy equipment moved along the highway toward the Georgian capital. Ural troop carriers rumbled by, loaded, followed by Grad missiles, self-propelled artillery, T-62 tanks and armed vehicles.
Vakhach, a young Dagestani from the 42nd Division, guarding the Russian checkpoint, watched the parade of weapons with a delighted gaze.
“The artillery,” he sighed. “The Grad complexes. Forty missiles each. After that the grass won’t grow, never mind people.”
Where are they going?” I asked.
‘We’re changing positions,” Vakhach hisses between his teeth, pointing in the direction of Tbilisi. “Everyone went that way, both recognizance and the infantry. Now the equipment is tagging along behind.”
The soldiers do not know why the army is moving forward after the signing of the ceasefire. They do not even know about the ceasefire. They find it unexpectedly upsetting when I tell them.
“Medvedev betrayed us. There, in Ossetia, they mowed down 2000 of our guys, and he made peace. This is a political war,” a soldier said. That was all there was to say about politics. “So did we win a lot of gold at the Olympics?”
“Some gold,” I answer. “But no one is talking about the Olympics now. You are in all the news.”
The soldiers look around and laugh. When we try to catch up to the column of equipment, we find that it has already been spread out through the fields and hills along both sides of the road around Igoeti, about 36 km. from Tbilisi. Near the village, we are stopped by a soldier in full uniform.
“Who are you? Where are you coming from? Where are you going?” he barks.
When he hears that we are Russian, he relaxes and introduces himself as Valery.
“You can go,” he said. “I’m not letting Americans through. What’s going on there in Tbilisi? Have you heard anything? When will Saakashvili knock it off?”
“They say everyone has agreed to peace.”
“I don’t know who went where, but they fired on our positions with rockets on Saturday,” he replied. “It’s a good thing they missed. But don’t write about that. Write about how we stole 22,000 lari [about $16,000] from two bank machines in Gori and gave the money to the peasants.”
Destructive Forces
Georgian police have been spending nights in the tree farms along the road for the last week as they wait to be let into Gori. Every day they are pushed back farther toward Tbilisi. Now they are in the village of Igoeti, half a kilometer from the Russian checkpoint. They observe the maneuvers sourly.
“It’s all just show. They’re just ruining the roads. No one knows why they came here. They say on your television channels that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are Georgian territory. So give it up. Why lie?” Dato, a member of the Georgian police special forces, sputters nervously.
His colleague David chain smokes and interjects “You can’t do that” at regular intervals.
“You can’t do that. It’s our world together. We have to live here and receive guests. Why did Putin need all of this? He’s a Christian. Isn’t he? Oh! You can’t do that.”
The railroad bridge in Grakali was blown up on Saturday. That line not only connected east and west in Georgia, it was neighboring Armenia’s only link to the outside world. The bridge was completely destroyed. Its concrete supports crumbled, the rails left dangling. Wires were found running 500 meters to the side from the bridge. Georgian Minister of State for European Integration Georgy Baramadze arrived at the scene a few hours after the explosion. He said it would take about two weeks to rebuild the bridge. He was unable to make an estimate of the cost of the war.
In addition to the bridge, he listed the seaport at Poti, the civilian radar station on Mt. Makhata near Tbilisi and the Gori military base as objects destroyed by the Russians.
“The losses are growing by the minute. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan [pipeline] is not operating. And now you can’t move oil by rail either,” he said. When a CNN film crew appears at the site of the explosion, it becomes clear what the minister is doing there. He makes a political statement.
“This is our punishment for loving freedom, democracy and independence, and not doing what the Kremlin orders,” he tells the journalists. “What happened here is a signal not only to Georgia, but to all of Europe. The whole world has to stop the barbarians.”
The Gori Strip
The movement of forces along the Gori-Tbilisi road continued yesterday. The Russian checkpoints were set up along the road and at one, near the village of Igoeti, soldiers with blue “MS” patches on their sleeves (for “peacekeeping forces” in Russian) stand alongside the soldiers from the 58th Army. They check all who pass and search their cars.
More...
