Russian general admits ‘serious shortfalls’ in Georgia war

[Imran Khan]

Russian general admits ‘serious shortfalls’ in Georgia war


Friday, December 12, 2008
MOSCOW: Russia’s military suffered “serious shortfalls” in its August conflict with Georgia, a top general said late on Wednesday, promising to fix the problems as part of a broad reform of the armed forces.

“We had serious shortfalls in this conflict. We have identified them and they will be addressed soon,” the head of Russia’s general staff Nikolai Makarov told an audience of foreign military attaches.

Describing the planned reform, he said: “The reform plan was practically ready before the conflict in Georgia. The conflict was a catalyst and accelerator for the reforms and it illustrated the need for them.”

Makarov did not identify the shortfalls but said the conflict “raised questions about specific aspects of the structure of the Russian armed forces”. Russia routed Georgia’s small US-trained army in the brief war but experts say its forces were deployed without the equipment standard to other modern armies, such as night-vision devices or satellite navigation gear.

Moscow also admitted losing at least four warplanes and one of its top generals in South Ossetia was injured by shrapnel after his convoy reportedly failed to take basic security measures.

After the conflict, the Russian defence ministry announced a broad reform initiative to reduce the size of the army, modernise its equipment and improve its efficiency.

 

[Imran Khan]

Saakashvili: we started the warFor the first time ever, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has admitted that his country started the military conflict in South Ossetia in August. But the Georgian leader is adamant the action was justified. He was testifying before a parliamentary commission investigating the five-day war.

According to Saakashvili, the attack on the South Ossetian capital, which involved night shelling of residential areas with multiple rocket launcher systems, was aimed at protecting Georgian citizens. He said it was a response to Russia’s “intervention” in the region.

“We did start military action to take control of Tskhinvali and other unruly areas. But we took this difficult decision to fend off our territory from intervention and save the people who were dying. It was inevitable,” Saakavili said.

The Georgian President claims Russia moved tanks into South Ossetian territory before Georgia launched its attack.

He said: “The issue is not about why Georgia started military action – we admit we started it. The issue is about whether there was another chance when our citizens were being killed? We tried to prevent the intervention and fought on our own territory.”

“I used to like Putin”

Mikhail Saakashvili said the deterioration of relations between Tbilisi and Moscow had nothing to do with his personal relations with Vladimir Putin. There was some speculation in the media that Putin bore a personal grudge against Saakashvili after he allegedly insulted Putin when he was president several years earlier.

The Georgian President said: “I never insulted him [Vladimir Putin] before anyone, that’s a lie.”

“All the gossip that the differences between our countries are based on personal hostility is an invented thing,” he said.

Ex-ambassador’s allegations ‘groundless’

Mikhail Saakashvili dismissed as nonsense the allegations voiced earlier this week by the former Georgian ambassador to Moscow, Erosi Kitsmarishvili. The diplomat said Tbilisi had been preparing the military campaign against South Ossetia for several years and put the blame for the bloodshed on Mikhail Saakashvili.

“Kitsmarishvili’s allegations are groundless; his status was not high enough to attend the Security Council meetings where the country’s foreign policy was decided. He could not know our plans, and those certainly have nothing to do with his version,” the Georgian leader said on Friday.

Meanwhile, Kitsmarishvili told RT that Saakashvili may have started the the August war in South Ossetia because he wanted to be remembered as the leader who began a new chapter in Georgia’s history.