Russia has officially annexed South Ossetia into “one united Russian state” which comes as no surprise considering that was the aim of the Russians all along (as well as the toppling of Mikheil Saakashvili’s government which remains standing to date). They have also further entrenched themselves in Abkhazia, ensuring that it doesn’t return to Georgian control in the coming years.

The Kremlin moved swiftly to tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway regions yesterday as South Ossetia announced that it would soon become part of Russia, which will open military bases in the province under an agreement to be signed on Tuesday.

Tarzan Kokoity, the province’s Deputy Speaker of parliament, announced that South Ossetia would be absorbed into Russia soon so that its people could live in “one united Russian state” with their ethnic kin in North Ossetia.

In and of itself I see nothing wrong with nation states expanding their borders, but the United States by complacently sitting by and not preventing this blatant assault on Georgia’s sovereignty has damaged its (already fragile) reputation as a reliable ally and only encouraged Putin to be be as belligerent towards his neighbors as he wishes in the coming years. What’s next? Estonia, Latvia, Moldova (Transdnistria), Lithuania, the Ukraine, or maybe one of the central Asian states could all suffer from needing the benevolent protection of their Russian minorities.

Michael Totten has a nice writeup on the entire conflict.

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

And that is merely the opening two paragraphs, read the whole thing.

A final article in the Georgian Daily is worth a read if only to gauge the mood of the citizens of Georgia in the aftermath of their country’s defeat.

The money helped fund Saakashvili’s reforms, including wholesale reorganisation of the economy. Signs of modernisation, great and small, soon followed.

“He really did a lot,” says Sopho Bukia, Georgia editor for the UK-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

“It sounds strange, but the other night I couldn’t find a parking space near home and you know I was really happy: I realised people have stopped worrying their cars will be stolen, which really is a kind of progress.”