[Talyubittu]

Originally Posted by Argos

The people living in S. Ossetia are Russian citizens, but not Russians. After the breakdown of the Sovietunion the people who lived outside the Russian Federation, but didn't get citizenship of the new country almost automatically got Russian passports. Matter of fact, the Ossetians didn't make any efforts to get the Georgian citizenship, so they got the Russian one quite unburocratically.

What should be noted is, that Russia has a mandate of the international community to keep the conflict parties apart and to protect the civil population. Therefore the invasion of Russian troops into S. Ossetia was completely according to international law. The war beyond the Ossetian borders is not.

Bush and Saakashvili played a silly game. While the Georgian president thought he could create clear situations inside the borders of Georgia with a surprise attack , the US were interested in how fast and accurate the new administration would react in such a situation and how good is Medvedev. Nobody thought that he would go farther than Putin ever was ready to go.

Whatever the outcome, nobody can really win. All involved parties will be in a more complicated situation with a lot more problems than before.