RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – August 5, 2009
TODAY: Lavrov calls Georgia ‘masters of provocation’; soldiers placed on alert. Humanitarian concerns for the state of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; Russian subs seen off US east coast. Politkovskaya trial reopened; Nashi to create militias. Putin holiday pics reaffirm macho image.
‘Provocations from the Georgian side … are not stopping’ claims a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the military have ‘stepped up’ readiness accordingly. ‘The situation is truly alarming’ says Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko, who has ordered soldiers in South Ossetia to be put on alert. Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has admonished the US: ‘it is highly regrettable that the Americans are going to further pump up Mikheil Saakashvili’s military machine‘. Reuters reports on the freezing of the conflict but the possibility that, ‘it could at some stage re-erupt’. Abkhaz President Sergei Bagpash has said that the breakaway region will wait ‘as long as it takes’ for its sovereignty to be internationally recognized. Reuters reports on the state of South Ossetia one year after the war, which, ‘zapped 80% of economic output from the already impoverished state’. ‘South Ossetia is rapidly becoming a ghost town’ says Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times. RFE/RL has a video report on the survivors of the conflict.
‘Provocations from the Georgian side … are not stopping’ claims a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the military have ‘stepped up’ readiness accordingly. ‘The situation is truly alarming’ says Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko, who has ordered soldiers in South Ossetia to be put on alert. Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has admonished the US: ‘it is highly regrettable that the Americans are going to further pump up Mikheil Saakashvili’s military machine‘. Reuters reports on the freezing of the conflict but the possibility that, ‘it could at some stage re-erupt’. Abkhaz President Sergei Bagpash has said that the breakaway region will wait ‘as long as it takes’ for its sovereignty to be internationally recognized. Reuters reports on the state of South Ossetia one year after the war, which, ‘zapped 80% of economic output from the already impoverished state’. ‘South Ossetia is rapidly becoming a ghost town’ says Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times. RFE/RL has a video report on the survivors of the conflict.