Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap, Ivan Krastev Europe has entered the new 19th century. The Russia-Georgia war of 8-12 August 2008 has acted as a time-machine, vaporising the "end of history" sentiment that shaped European politics in the 1990s and replacing it with an older geopolitical calculus in modern form.
An older calculus - but not a cold-war one. Indeed, though the conflict over South Ossetia has generated heady rhetoric of the cold-war's return, the real constellation of power and ideology it has revealed is...
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Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution , George Hewitt
On the second full day of the Georgia-Russia war of 8-12 August 2008, Russian patrol-boats operating off the Black Sea shore of Abkhazia sank four Georgian vessels apparently intent on landing in the territory. The identity of these vessels is not yet clear, but it is interesting to note that a published list of military equipment in the possession of the Georgian government - equipment largely supplied over many years by Tbilisi's western friends - includes a ship called the General...
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After the war: recognising reality , Neal Ascherson
The Russian soldiers are not the worst. They have won their victory, and now hang about Georgia mopping up. Much more terrible are the civilians and volunteers who come behind the soldiers, the big-bellied men with guns, knives and army jackets thrown over their T-shirts. They are doing the murdering, the looting and burning, the "cleansing" as they drive the last Georgians out of South Ossetia. The flight of the Georgian army has let them into Georgian territory as far as Gori, so...
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South Ossetia: children of war, Peter Nasmyth
Among the many words and voices emerging from this conflict there are very few, if any, coming from those who experience it the most keenly - the region's children.
These paintings were created by children in South Ossetia during late 2006 and 2007 and also ten years earlier, while the memories of the previous battle for Tskhinvali (1991-2) were still strong in their minds. The children are both Georgian and Ossetian, some living in Tskhinvali, some in Atchabeti (a Georgian village...
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Citizen war-journo? A Caucasus test , Evgeny Morozov
To watch Russian leaders and media make the public case for war with Georgia when the conflict was still in its infancy was also to wonder why at that point there was still so little factual evidence - particularly photos and videos - from observers on the ground in South Ossetia's capital, Tshkinvali. The Kremlin's spokespersons wanted the world to believe that the city had just suffered a Stalingrad-like devastation - though there was as yet no visible proof of the thousands of...
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The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation, Donald Rayfield
The embers of the five-day war between Georgia and Russia of 8-12 August 2008 are not quite extinguished, but the ceasefire agreement skilfully negotiated by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and agreed with his counterparts Dmitri Medvedev (Russia) and Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgia) gives hope for an end to this intense, destructive and tragic conflict.
Donald Rayfield is emeritus professor of the school of modern languages, Queen Mary University of London. Among his books is Stalin...
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openDemocracy.net/Russia reports, debates and blogs the Georgia war
