August 29:
The New York Times reports that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has taken a neutral stance on Moscow’s military action in Georgia. President Dmitry Medvedev traveled to Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe for the SCO annual summit hoping it would provide strong international backing Russia has so far lacked after its incursion. Instead, the group – consisting of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – expressed “grave concern in connection with the recent tensions around the South Ossetia issue” and urged Russian and Georgia “to solve existing problems peacefully, through dialogue, and to make efforts facilitating reconciliation and talks.”
Georgia has severed diplomatic relations with Russia after it recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the BBC reports. Moscow said the move “will not help bilateral relations.” Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said UN satellite images proving that five ethnic Georgian villages near the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, were torched are “compelling evidence of war crimes and grave human rights abuses.” The New-York based group called on Russia’s government to prosecute those responsible.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has repeated the charge he recently made to CNN that the United States was involved in the Georgia conflict, Agence France-Presse reports. There were “many U.S. advisors” in the “military operations zone,” Putin told Germany’s ARD television, adding he suspected they were there in order to “organize a small victorious war.” “And if that failed, they wanted to create an enemy out of Russia and unite voters around one of the [U.S.] presidential candidates,” he said. “Of course, a ruling party candidate, because it is only the ruling party that has this kind of resource.”
August 30:
An anonymous aide to French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told reporters in a briefing at the Elysee Palace in Paris that European Union leaders probably will not penalize Russia with sanctions for its invasion of Georgia when they gather September 1st for summit on the crisis, Bloomberg News reports. The Associated Press, meanwhile, reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has backed Russia in its war with Georgia and said Moscow was right to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Chavez said he fully supports Russia’s position and that Venezuela “would do the same if someone dared to attack us.”
August 31:
The owner of an opposition website in Ingushetia, Magomed Yevloyev, has died of a gunshot wound sustained while in police custody, Gzt.ru reports. Yevloyev, who owns Ingushetiya.ru, which has been highly critical of the republic’s president, Murat Zyazikov, was detained after disembarking from a jet that arrived in Ingushetia from Moscow and which Zyazikov also happened to be on. Officials claim Yevloyev was killed after trying to grab a weapon from a policeman, but his supporters insist that it was a premeditated murder. Ingushetia has seen increasing popular discontent with Zyazikov, a career Federal Security Service general, as well as growing violence from an armed Islamist insurgency.
September 1:
Rossiya state television has praised Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for reportedly saving one of its camera crews from an attack by a Siberian tiger in Russia’s the Far East. According to Reuters, the channel reported that just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards the TV crew, but Putin quickly shot and sedated the tiger with a tranquilizer gun. “The 55-year-old former KGB spy, who cultivated a macho image during his eight years as the Kremlin chief, was shown striding through the taiga in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the feline foe,” Reuters reports.
Want these sent to your inbox?
Subscribe