Wu Wei

August war again?

Latest from Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times here:

The Kremlin's behavior is driven by both rational and irrational motives. An irrational motive is Putin's stated desire to hang Saakashvili by the balls. A rational motive is the desire to convince the world that Saakashvili has already hanged himself by the balls.

"Caucasus 2009" is strikingly similar to the Russian exercises that preceded the August 2008 war with Georgia. The smell of war is once again in the air. Counterterrorism operations have been instituted in the Prielbrusiye region on the Russian-Georgian border, many people have been evacuated from the region and Russia has beefed up its forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Like deja vu, the Kremlin is again accusing Georgia of aggression, and yet it is Moscow that has insisted that all observers from the United Nations and Europe leave the region to remove unnecessary witnesses to Russia's planned aggression. It would be difficult to label these moves as simply blackmail. Russia is mobilizing for war.

The Kremlin's foreign policy is driven by one basic principle: It will pursue an aggressive, hostile policy as long as it believes it can get away with it.

Joe Biden is coming to Tbilisi  between July 22 and 24.  After that there's a clear run for Putin unless Sarkozy has any plans to visit as well.

More gloom

From here

So now everyone awaits Obamas mission to Moscow on the 6th of july. Most analysts think that his performance would mean the difference of "invade" or "not invade" Georgia. I really hope Obama will be firm, and won't proceed with the naïve "reset" project. Russia needs US as an enemy in order to keep the current cleptocracy at the power, thus persuing the "reset" project will only serve to project US as weak, and confirm the image Putin want's to create.

The rest of the discussion and comments suggest that Russia has enough conflict in the North Caucasus to want to have more in the South.

On the other hand, in the 19th century, Russia conquered the North Caucasus only when it had conquered and created a stable peace in Georgia and control of its southern border.  So trouble erupting on its southern border would need to be sorted out first, with this line of thinking.

And this year in Georgia we have ...

From the Jamestown Foundation archive:

7 May 2009  Increasing risk of Russian Intervention in Georgia

12 May 2009 Radical Georgian Opposition Considers Shift in Tactics

21 May 2009 Radical Opposition Threatens to Disrupt Georgian Transportation

29 May 2009 Moscow Playing with Multiple Options on Black Sea Pipelines

2 June 2009 U.N. Secretary-General Revises Report on Abkhazia under Russian Pressure

12 June 2009 Moscow Ready to Scuttle U.N. and OSCE Missions in Georgia

18 June 2009 Russian Military Chief Accuses Georgia of Preparing Aggression

Sounds familiar doesn't it?  

Similarities with last year                                   
Disillusionment with Saakashvili                         
Disorganisation of the Opposition (and now more angry)                     
Russian military activity in breakaway areas (and increased  informal militias)  
Ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Ineffectiveness of UN and OSCE monitoring  (no monitoring in breakaway areas)                                     
Russian military manoeuvres in the North Caucasus again in July
Holiday season coming up

Extra disruptive factors
Global financial crisis distracting the rest of the world
Sever financial trouble at home in Russia needs adventures abroad as distraction
President Obama still supporting Georgia even though Europe has gone cool
NATO manoeuvres held in Georgia
More trouble in Moldova and Ukraine
Increasing troubles in North Caucasus this month
Awareness of the lack of readiness of Russian army

From the 16 June Jamestown article we have the following:

The most dangerous period within which a new full-scale war with Georgia might occur will be from July 10 until after President Barack Obama visits Moscow in August, while the invasion forces are already deployed and poised for action, under the cover of "Kavkaz-2009." If Russian forces go into action, their objectives will be decisive.

The author of the 16 June article, Pavel Felgenhauer, continues that the Russian strategic objectives will be:

1. Regime change and the forceful demilitarization of Georgia, fully dismantling and disarming the regime-loyal Georgian army, border guards and special police forces.

2. Establishing a secure land corridor linking Russia to its strategically important military base in Armenia.

3. Transforming Georgia into a loose confederation of its many semi-independent regions with their regional king-pins, with a weak central government and without any national military-security forces. Russian military forces will be permanently stationed within the Georgian confederation, ensuring influence, control of energy supply corridors to the Caspian and Central Asia, and ending the country's aspirations to join NATO.

The first objective will hardly be difficult given the performance of the Georgian army last year, since the global financial crisis has meant that it could not be re-equipped and it can hardly be much better trained now.  While the Russian army was not better equipped or much better disciplined, it comes with bigger numbers and fire power.

The second objective is essential, as currently not only is there no land access, but Georgia also controls the supply of gas to Armenia, and we all know that gas can be used as a political weapon.

The ease of achieving the third objective was amply demonstrated last August when Georgia was effective cut in two after the advance up to the main east-west highway at Gori, which also houses a large military base.  The advance on Tbilisi will be aided by the new motorway being constructed as part of Georgia's ambition to be a transportation transit corridor, to which it is dedicating most of its development resources, without considering the risks of putting all its eggs in one basket.

Felgenhauer continues that the Russian operational objectives will be to:

1. To engage and fully decimate the most capable Georgian government forces (artillery and special forces, including police special forces) in decisive battles.

2. To isolate Georgia from any possible external aid by taking under control its ports, major roads and airfields. One of the prime military targets of any future campaign could be the cluster of airfields and airstrips east of Tbilisi (Vaziani).

3. When the regular Georgian army, police and security forces are smashed, the existing political internal tensions could precipitate the disintegration of the present unified Georgian state. The international community may eventually leave Russia to manage the ensuing mess.

Russia managed to bomb Poti and the military airports last year without any problem. Felgenhauer has already described here in February the plan for taking Tbilisi so it is already well known.

And what else is reassuring?

With its present array of weapons, training and capabilities, the Georgian forces do not appear sufficient to deter Russia. The international community is doing almost nothing, apparently hoping that marginalizing Georgia and charming Russia is the best possible policy. The U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Philip H. Gordon has confirmed that the U.S. will not provide Georgia with any defensive or other weapons (RIA Novosti, June 9). This development has been eagerly awaited in Moscow.

And I forgot: this year we don't have any distractions like the Olympic Games.  Luckily Joe Biden is coming to Georgia for 20-24 July.  That should give us till the end of July at least.

If that's not enough for you, I recommend this week's International Crisis Group report here, encouragingly titled "Georgia-Russia: Still Insecure and Dangerous".  That's only South Ossetia, apparently there's worse to come on Abkhazia.

This time last year in Georgia ....

From the Jamestown Foundation Archives (EuroAsia Daily Monitor except where marked otherwise)

1 May 2008  ANNEXATION AND MILITARIZATION OF ABKHAZIA CONTINUE APACE

2 May 2008 RUSSIA REINFORCES FORCES IN ABKHAZIA AS A POSSIBILITY OF ARMED CONFLICT LOOMS

5 May 2008  RUSSIA'S STRANGE "PEACEKEEPING" OPERATION IN ABKHAZIA

5 May 2008  RUSSIA DOUBLING ITS TROOPS IN GEORGIA'S ABKHAZIA REGION

6 May 2008  INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS PASSIVE AS RUSSIA MOVES TROOPS INTO ABKHAZIA

7 May 2008  THE WEST RESPONDS WEAKLY TO RUSSIAN CHALLENGES IN GEORGIA: PART I

8 May 2008 THE WEST CAN RESPOND MORE EFFECTIVELY TO RUSSIA'S ASSAULT ON GEORGIA: PART II

9 May 2008 THE WEST CAN RESPOND MORE EFFECTIVELY TO RUSSIA'S ASSAULT ON GEORGIA: PART III

12 May 2008  WILL PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV'S FIRST CRISIS BE GEORGIA?

15 May 2008 RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS USED AS CHANNEL FOR TBILISI-MOSCOW CONTACTS

16 May 2008 U.N. RESOLUTION ON ABKHAZIA SHOWS WHO'S WHO ON ETHNIC CLEANSING

19 May 2008 GEORGIA HOLDS PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN A DANGEROUS SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

21 May 2008  MOSCOW ENCOURAGES NORTH-SOUTH OSSETIAN IRREDENTISM AGAINST GEORGIA

22 May 2008 A GEORGIAN CHARM OFFENSIVE IN MOSCOW

3 June 2008  RUSSIA DEPLOYS RAILWAY TROOPS TO ABKHAZIA 

4 June 2008  EUROAPPEASEMENT: THE EU'S ANSWER TO RUSSIA'S ASSAULT ON GEORGIA

13 June 2008   SOLANA RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED FROM ABKHAZIA

13 June 2008  MEDVEDEV CONTINUES AND ESCALATES PUTIN'S HARD LINE ON GEORGIA

19 June 2008  MOSCOW READY FOR MAJOR CONFRONTATIONS WITH PRO-WESTERN GEORGIA AND UKRAINE

19 June 2008  GEORGIAN OPPOSITION RIVEN BY MULTIPLE SPLITS AS NEW PARLIAMENT OPENS

23 June 2008  GAZPROM'S MOVE ON ABKHAZIA: MORE REASONS FOR GEORGIA TO BLOCK RUSSIA'S WTO ACCESSION

26 June 2008  THE WEST IS CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT TO DO IN ABKHAZIA

27 June 2008  GEORGIA HIGH ON THE EU-RUSSIA SUMMIT AGENDA

30 June 2008  GEORGIA LAUNCHES A THREE-TRACK DIPLOMATIC EFFORT ON ABKHAZIA

7 July 2008   GUAM SUMMIT HELD AMID ADVERSE TRENDS ON ENERGY AND THE FROZEN CONFLICTS

11 July 2008  "DE-RECOGNITION" OF GEORGIA'S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY DISQUALIFIES RUSSIA AS "PEACEKEEPER"

17 July 2008  RUSSIA IS STRONGER AND MORE AGGRESSIVE

17 July 2008 Russia Holds Military Exercises in the North Caucasus  (North Caucasus Analysis)

18 JULY 2008  MOSCOW, SOKHUMI STOP GERMAN PLAN BEFORE THE START

22 JULY 2008  STEINMEIER'S PLAN ON ABKHAZIA: BENIGN INTENTIONS, LIMITED RELEVANCE, BLOCKED BY MOSCOW

23 JULY 2008 POST-MORTEMS ON THE GERMAN PLAN ON ABKHAZIA

24 JULY 2008 GEORGIA, U.S. ADDRESSING GAPS IN THE GERMAN PLAN ON ABKHAZIA

31 JULY 2008 RUSSIAN RAILROAD TROOPS COMPLETE MISSION IN ABKHAZIA

1 AUGUST 2008 BERLIN CONSULTATIONS ON ABKHAZIA DERAILED

4 AUGUST 2008 MOSCOW ORCHESTRATES WAR SCARE IN SOUTH OSSETIA

7 AUGUST 2008 OSSETIAN SEPARATISTS ARE PROVOKING A MAJOR RUSSIAN INTERVENTION

8 AUGUST 2008 THE GOALS BEHIND MOSCOW'S PROXY OFFENSIVE IN SOUTH OSSETIA

THE WAR HAS STARTED.

Did you see it coming?

Why Khabarovsk?

RFE gives one answer here

With little going on at the EU-Russia summit, the "FT's" Charles Clover has a nice piece looking at why the summit was held in a city nine time zones from Brussels.

Not, you might think, a shrewd effort to befuddle the EU bureaucrats in advance of the gas negotiations, but apparently because Klaus hadn't been there:

The Kremlin, apparently, had not wanted to choose the location for fear of offending powerful regional governors who were gunning for the honour of hosting it, “so they said ‘let the Europeans choose’”, according to an east European diplomat.

José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, and Václav Klaus, Czech president - the Czechs hold the revolving EU presidency - had a look at the list of prospective sites before Mr Klaus picked Khabarovsk, because “he hadn’t been there before and wanted to see it”, according to a diplomat, who asked not to be named.

The city, like virtually every Siberian frontier town, boasts pleasant tree-lined central streets named after Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, numerous parks, statues of Alexander Pushkin and a lapdance establishment that delegates have been advised to steer clear of.

Well I can feel smug then, because I went in 1975 on my Transiberian train trip.  Because I wasn't going to Japan or Australia, unlike most foreign travellers in those days, I couldn't go off to Nakhodka, (the port for boats to Japan) or to Vladivostok (a close city in those days).  So I stayed at the last place to which I was allowed to travel which was Khabarovsk, for a few days before flying to Tashkent. 

I remember it as a rather pleasant typical small Soviet town (as described above, but I don't think lapdancing had been invented in those days). Fish was regularly on the menu in the hotel.  Even the hotel staff were friendly which was not usually the case when they found they had to deal with a lone traveller (more money to be made out of groups) who wasn't going to spend vast amounts on vodka.

It was so unspecial that I seem not to have taken any photos at all.  Later I recognised the places I had been to appearing briefly in the Russo-Japanese film Dersu Uzala made by Kurosawa.  Dersu is a local hunter befriended by a Russian army explorer, who he rescues from a storm.  When the hunter is growing old and can no longer hunt, the Russian invites him to stay in his home in Khabarovsk, but he is unable to settle in the town.  The film has stunning photography of the landscape and wild life.

Aliyev doesn't get it

As reported by the Moscow Times here (hat tip to Sloph):

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said Saturday that he wanted Russia to serve as a transit route for his country to begin selling gas to Europe, a proposal that could please Western policymakers who have been looking to diversify their energy supplies.

Maybe he was trying to please too many people at the same time. No way is gas transiting via Russia going to be an attractive alternative to Russian gas going via Russia, which is what the EU is looking for.

Unless of course Russia suddenly decides to implement the Energy Charter Treaty and/or allow third party access to the transit pipelines in accordance with EU directives. Doesn't sound like a scenario that would stop the EU trying to diversify.

Russian Federation will break up, like the USSR did?

So says a Russian professor quoted here on the Jamestown Foundation web site, with an interesting metaphor:

As a scholar, I establish the fact that the Russian Federation is developing signs of the initial stage of a breakup," Professor Alexei Malashenko, Scholar-in-Residence of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told Jamestown on February 12. "Not unlike the case of the USSR, the current economic crisis threatens to bring already badly strained internal ties to the breaking point."

The first parts to break away, Malashenko believes, will be the Kaliningrad enclave, wedged between Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus and firmly oriented to Europe, and the Far East on the opposite side of this country, firmly locked economically to China, Japan, and South Korea.

The Kaliningrad region and the Far East have as little in common within the Russian Federation as, say, Estonia and Turkmenistan did in the Soviet Union. No viable economic ties exist between the extremes of this large country. There is nothing like Route 1 from Key West, Florida, to Fort Kent on the Canadian border to link Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.

Only centralized control, known as Putin's vertical of power, has kept Russian regions together like hoops on a cask. As the systemic crisis loosens the hoops, however, the decayed cask will start falling apart.

There's no reason at all why Kaliningrad should want to be linked with Vladivostok really.  Kaliningrad, and indeed some corners of the Baltic States, would be quite happy being linked to Moscow or St Petersburg, rather than somewhere on the other side of the world. 10 hour difference in time zones is quite a lot more than in the US, not to mention other differences.  These days Vladivostok and the Russian Far East is far more focussed on the rest of the Far East, where its trade links are likely to be found, rather than a railway link and a poor air service. 

 In a recent kerfuffle over Japanese car imports, Putin called in OMON not the local police, since they were probably just as keen on the car imports as the rest of the locals. 

I wonder how much of the Russian army is stationed in the Far East, these days, to keep control.

Obituary: Anastasia Baburova, a Russian journalist

Quoted in full.  I hope they don't mind.  I just found it so sad, yet beautifully written and inspiring.

Feb 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Anastasia Baburova, a Russian journalist, died on January 19th, aged 25

AP

IT IS still not clear why Anastasia Baburova was shot in the head. Was she a target—along with Stanislav Markelov, a human-rights lawyer who was shot seconds earlier? Was she an accidental victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or did she try to grab and disarm the killer after he shot her companion?

Both Mr Markelov and Ms Baburova were killed in broad daylight in the centre of Moscow. The next day, a party of Russian nationalists brought champagne to the murder scene to celebrate the "elimination" of their enemies. Her death was part of a continuing battle between fascists and anti-fascists in Russia, which is seldom so plainly revealed to the outside world.

Jumping an assassin was part of her nature. At any sign of violence or racism her nerves and muscles instantly responded, hitting out, resisting what was physically intolerable. "It is hard to look in the eyes of a Korean student who has just been hit on the head by two under-age jerks…giving 'Heil Hitler' salutes", she wrote in her blog after seeing yet another neo-Nazi attack in Moscow. It was the same blog in which she enthused about roller-blading for the first time: at night, fast, without a helmet.

The fact that she worked at Novaya Gazeta was no coincidence. "Where else?" she asked her colleagues, rhetorically. She was the fourth journalist Novaya Gazeta had lost in the past eight years. But Russia's most critical newspaper, co-founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of perestroika, was the natural place for her to be.

She was born in 1983, just before perestroika opened up the country. Like the best of her generation (alas, few and untypical) she grew up fearless, thriving on freedom and fresh air. Ms Baburova considered herself a citizen of the world; she had more in common with rebellious youths in Europe than with office workers in her own country. She spoke fluent English and learnt Chinese; yet she had little chance to go abroad, to London or anywhere else. Instead, she travelled through books. At 15 her restlessness was compressed in a poem called "Coffee Cup":

Wake up in the morning
Stretch your arms towards the sun
Say something in Chinese
And go to Paris…
Every minute, somewhere in the world there is morning
Somewhere, people stretch their arms towards the sun
They speak new languages, fly from Cairo to Warsaw
They smile and drink coffee together.

Official patriotic slogans ("A resurgent Russia that is getting off its knees") sounded false and alien to her. She was never on her knees, never humiliated by the Soviet collapse, even though she was born in Sebastopol—a Black Sea port redolent with past Russian glory—when it was part of the Soviet empire, and went to school there when it had become part of Ukraine. Instead of feeling inferior, she learnt martial arts. She managed to get into the Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), where the children of the Soviet elite traditionally prepare themselves for diplomatic careers—a miracle for a girl from Sebastopol, without connections. Her exam results were so impressive that she was offered a place at Yale. But she decided she wanted to be a journalist, and walked out of the institute.

She could have made a career at Izvestia, and did a short stint there, but never fitted in at a newspaper which in recent years has exuded nationalism, conformism and cynicism. She got into trouble for showing her press card, and was arrested for filming police evicting residents from a building which they had claimed for themselves. Vladimir Mamontov, the editor of Izvestia, who never met Ms Baburova, dismissed her as the type of girl "who knows very little about real life, but vibrates at the sight of a social change. They are waiting for a revolution, and when there is none they get bored."

Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, knew her better. She reminded him of the young men who people Dostoevsky's novels, youths with a heightened sense of injustice and a longing to change the world. Though her family came from the Soviet intelligentsia, her roots went back further, to the 19th-century thinkers who invented the word. Unsurprisingly, Ms Baburova had a soft spot for anarchists. Mikhail Bakunin, for example, who believed that without inner freedom for the individual, society can be neither free nor fair.

She and her friends rightly identified fascism as the biggest and most pressing threat to her country. She swore to fight it. She sensed accurately the social kinship between Stalinism and fascism: the link between attempts to portray Stalin as a "successful manager", and the current upsurge of nationalism. Unlike many young people in the generation before hers, she did not see a safe job as an ultimate measure of success.

In Turgenev's poem "The Threshold", a young woman stands before a door. A voice asks whether she is prepared to endure cold, hunger, mockery, prison and death, all of which await her on the other side. She says "Yes" to everything, and steps over. "A fool," cries a voice from behind her. "A saint," suggests another.

Russia's Coming War with Georgia

Stories with this headline are doing the rounds, mostly originating in remarks made by Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian military analyst who writes in Novaya Gazeta.  He gave regular warnings about Russian troop build-ups in Abkhazia and South Ossetia before last year's August war, so perhaps his warnings should be headed.   

The recent remarks first appeared here ion the jamestown Foundation website on 12 Feb.

While snow covers the Caucasian mountain passes until May, a renewed war with Georgia is impossible. There is hope in Moscow that the Georgian opposition may still overthrow Mikheil Saakashvili's regime or that the Obama administration will somehow remove him. However, if by May, Saakashvili remains in power, a military push by Russia to oust him may be seriously contemplated. The constant ceasefire violations could escalate to involve Russian servicemen - constituting a public casus belli. The desire by the West to "reset" relations with Moscow, putting the Georgia issue aside, may be interpreted as a tacit recognition of Russia's right to use military force.

Jamestown is also saying later here

Otherwise, dozens of Russian tanks and artillery systems, fully ready for attack, are located in Akhalgori district, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. And nobody knows who will pull the trigger first.

Provocations are already being reported, not just on the border with the breakaway provinces but also in the partly Armenian populated province of Samtskhe-Javakheti Region of Georgia, as mentioned here

At the same time, however, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has intensified its efforts to expose the enemies of the country and is performing the functions of the special services as well. On January 21 two locals of Armenian nationality, Griogor Minasyan and Sarkis Akobjanyan, were detained. The two live in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region of Georgia, which is densely populated by ethnic Armenians. According to official information released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, "they were detained [for] forming an armed unit, its preparation, and espionage" (www.presa.ge, January 23, 2009). The detention of Minasyan and Akobjanyan was the second arrest on charges of espionage in the last two years in Georgia. In September 2006 Georgian Special Forces detained four Russian officers of the Russian Military Headquarters in Georgia. The detentions received widespread coverage in the media, and an attempt to turn the arrests into a public relations show, was soon followed by a rapid deterioration in relations between Russia and Georgia, which ended in the massive deportation of Georgians from Russia and the suspension of air connections between the two countries (Arsenali, February 21, 2009).

Other provocations may be political, as reported here

Bakradze Warns Russia May Try to Incite Chaos in Georgia Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 27 Feb.'09 / 19:13 Parliamentary Chairman, Davit Bakradze, said on February 27, that resumption of large-scale military hostilities was not likely, but warned that Russia might try to incite chaos within Georgia to achieve its goal. “Russia’s indirect involvement in the country’s internal politics and inciting internal political instability is more dangerous than direct military aggression, because eventually the instability and chaos can be more effective rather than tanks for replacing the authorities,” he told a group of students at a meeting in the Tbilisi-based Caucasus School of Business.

All the old politicians and the young ones who have fallen out with Saakashvili have formed opposition parties, all of which are calling for demonstrations in April, but they haven't agreed on the start date of the demonstrations, let alone whether they will demonstrate "together", so what hope of a common policy or plan to oust Saakashvili and form a coherent government.  Nino Burjanadze (a rumoured favourite of Bush for a replacement) is now deciding she will go back into politics instead of running a think tank.  Not much signs of any thinking coming out from her.  For a further character assassination read here, where she is described as "nye ryba, nye miaso"*.  As an Iron Lady of Georgia (she admires Margaret Thatcher), she is a failure as she has turned too many times to be credible.

But then comes more information about the plan of attack.

Pavel Felgenhauer – Plan of Georgian Occupation Worked Out in the Kremlin
February 24th, 2009  quoted   from here

Plan of Georgian occupation is worked out in the Kremlin, according to which Russian military forces will enter Tbilisi from Tskhinvali and Akhalgori and occupy North part of the city.

Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer stated about it in interview to the paper 'Kviris Palitra'.
According to his information, the second military campaign will start with minor incident, while Russian soldier dies and it will be used as reason by Moscow to start war against Georgia.
'Invasion of Tbilisi is planned. North side of Tbilisi, as Moscow considers that it is not necessary to invade the centre. According to our information, Russian army will occupy Vasiani, then – aviation factory and international airport. These objects are important, as Tbilisi stays without air aid if Americans desire to help you. Invasion will take place from Tskhinvali and Akhalgori and everything will be over by it', - Felgenhauer stated.
The Russian expert says that there will be invasion from Abkhazia and the West Georgia will be occupied.  Military expert says he has relations with his old fellow Grigory Karasin, who is foreign Minster of Russia and other military and political high rank officials. He also states that Georgian government has information about the plan.
Felgenhauer states that this war with Georgia will be profitable for Russia to cover the existing financial depression in Russia. 'If war starts in Georgia, main goal will be to change Saakashvili's regime. It will automatically cause change in orientation. It doesn't matter who is brought by the Kremlin – Abashidze** or other. The Kremlin understands that they have to defeat armed forces of Georgia first and foremost. It is not so easy for Russians'.

* Russian expression translated 'neither fish nor meat'.  No third option as in English: neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.

**Aslan Abashidze was the previous leader of the Adjara Autonomous Republic in Georgia, till Saakashvili kicked him out and he went to Moscow.

My link with Khodorkovsky

Government Gets Apatit Stake Back 17 February 2009  Moscow Times

The government regained a stake in Apatit, the phosphate miner formerly controlled by jailed businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after a court overturned the company's 1990s privatization, PhosAgro Group, Apatit's parent company, said in a regulatory filing. The Federal Property Management Agency took control last week of 27 percent of Apatit following a December ruling by a Moscow court that PhosAgro may appeal, CEO Maxim Volkov said, Vedomosti reported Monday. Acron and Norway's Yara International share a 10 percent stake in Apatit, which is based in the Murmansk region. During a visit to the company's Veliky Novgorod plant last month, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised Acron owner Vyacheslav Kantor for not cutting jobs during the economic turmoil. Putin was president when Khodorkovsky was arrested and convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison. The case against Khodorkovsky and his Menatep Group began with an investigation into how Apatit was acquired in the 1990s.

When I worked in Murmansk oblast in the early 1990s, it was in the town of Kirovsk, where the miners lived.  The repairs of the hotel Severnaya, on which I was working, were paid for by the sale of the apatite to a Hungarian trade organisation which employed me. "Sale" isn't quite the right word, since it was more like a barter deal involving apatite on one side and building contracts, TVs and foreign trips on the other.

At the time I didn't know anything about the privatisation, but just wondered why the work on the hotel came to an abrupt end. Now I know.