The Pipeline War: Russian bear
goes for West's jugular
By Svetlana Skarbo and Jonathan Petre
10/08/08 "Daily
Mail" -- The war in Georgia escalated
dangerously last night after Russian jets reportedly bombed a
vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.
After a day of heightening international tensions, Georgian
leaders claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which
transports oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, had been
attacked. But it is thought the bombs missed their target.
Their claims came after Russian jets struck deep into the
territory of its tiny neighbour, killing civilians and
‘completely devastating’ the strategic Black Sea port of Poti, a
staging post for oil and other energy supplies.
Reports last night also said that Russia had bombed the
international airport in Tbilisi.
Georgian economic development minister Ekaterina Sharashidzne
said: ‘This clearly shows that Russia has targeted not just
Georgian economic outlets but international economic outlets as
well.’
The pipeline is 30 per cent owned by BP and supplies 1 per cent
of the world’s oil needs, pumping up to a million barrels of
crude per day to Turkey.
It is crucial to the world’s volatile energy market and the only
oil and gas route that bypasses Russia’s stranglehold on energy
exports from the region.
As President Bush led the West in intensifying pressure on
Russia to halt the bombing in Georgia last night, the two
countries were edging closer to full-scale war over their
conflicting claims for disputed territory.
Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili called for a ceasefire
and accused Moscow of mounting an unprovoked invasion that put
‘the entire post-Cold War order of Europe and the world at
stake’.
But Moscow said that the conflict could not be resolved unless
Georgia withdrew from its breakaway region of South Ossetia. The
alarming developments followed a second day of drama and
bloodshed in the pro-Western country in which:
• Russian jets widened the offensive by bombing the central
Georgian town of Gori – Joseph Stalin’s birthplace – in an
attack on military targets that Georgian authorities claimed
killed 60 civilians, and attacked the port of Poti.
• Georgia claimed that Russian troops had opened a new front by
moving into another disputed province, Abkhazia, which has also
suffered from ethnic tensions.
• Georgia declared a state of war, recalled all its 2,000 troops
from Iraq and ordered a mass call-up with reservists being sent
to the war zone to ‘defend the motherland’.
• Russia claimed that it had ‘completely liberated’ the capital
of South Ossetia Tskhinvali – a claim denied by Georgia – after
flying in elite troops in an operation Moscow said was intended
to force Georgia into a ceasefire.
• Georgia claimed to have shot down 12 Russian combat aircraft –
but Moscow confirmed that only two planes were missing.
• Georgia may pull its 35-strong Olympic team out of the Beijing
games because of the Russian military attacks, the country’s
National Olympic Committee said.
The forces of the two countries first clashed on Friday after
Moscow sent hundreds of troops and armed convoys across the
border into South Ossetia to repel a Georgian attack on rebels
allied to Moscow.
Almost 40,000 refugees have already fled to Russia from the
fighting, threatening a humanitarian catastrophe.
Tskhinvali was said to have been ‘almost destroyed’ in
onslaughts by both sides.
Bodies lay in the streets and hospitals were overwhelmed with
wounded.
Most of the 70,000 South Ossetians hold Russian passports and
are allied to Moscow, while Georgia is an ally of the US and has
applied to join Nato.
Russian bombers yesterday widened the offensive to force
Georgian troops back from South Ossetia by bombing.
In his first Press conference since the conflict broke out early
yesterday, President Saakashvili said: ‘I call for an immediate
ceasefire. Russia has launched a full-scale military invasion of
Georgia.’
He reacted furiously to the air strikes on Gori and Poti, saying
that it was comparable to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
He also alleged that Russian troops were opening up another
front, adding: ‘Hours ago Russia’s Black Sea fleet started to
move into Georgia’s territory in Abkhazia. Russian troops and
heavy equipment are in upper Abkhazia.’
He said Russia was conducting ethnic cleansing of Georgians in
Ossetia and Abkhazia’s Kodoro Gorge region.
The Georgian Parliament has approved a declaration for a
‘state of war’ for 15 days after at least 2,000 civilians were
killed in fighting between Russia and the former Soviet
satellite.
Overnight, two Russian planes were shot down and 12 of its
soldiers were killed – along with more civilians who died during
fighting in South Ossetia.
Russian fighter jets carried out up to five raids on mostly
military targets around Gori – close to the conflict zone in
South Ossetia – but at least one bomb is thought to have hit an
apartment, killing five civilians, according to reports.
The Foreign Office upgraded its travel advice to urge against
all but essential travel to Georgia. Foreign Secretary David
Miliband was under mounting pressure to consider breaking off
his summer holiday to tackle the mounting crisis.
Mr Miliband, on holiday in Minorca, issued his first
statement on the the affair late yesterday to call for a
ceasefire ‘and for peace talks to start as soon as possible’.
He also announced that he was sending Sir Brian Fall, the
Foreign Office representative for the South Caucasus, to Georgia
as part of an EU peace mission.
Defence Minister Des Browne said a delegation of EU, US and
Nato officials was flying to the Georgian capital ‘to broker a
ceasefire’.
The move caps two days of faltering diplomatic activity, in
which members of the United Nations Security Council have
struggled to convene an emergency meeting.
Belgium’s UN Ambassador Jan Grauls, who chairs the 15-member
council this month, had spoken to his Russian and American
counterparts.
‘Depending on how much progress is made in these bilaterals,
we will decide whether we can call a full council meeting,’ his
spokesman said.
President Bush expressed alarm about the escalating conflict
and called on Russia to respect Georgia’s territorial integrity.
In Beijing, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was seen to
approach President Bush in the Olympic stadium, where they were
attending the opening ceremony.
The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he witnessed a
heated discussion between the two leaders.
‘The President and Mr Putin were in an animated conversation
two seats in front of us and I imagine they had a few things on
their agenda,’ he said.
Mr Putin later accused Georgia of seeking ‘bloody adventures’
and trying to drag other countries into a military conflict in
South Ossetia.
‘Georgia’s aspiration to join Nato... is driven by its
attempt to drag other nations and peoples into its bloody
adventures,’ Mr Putin said during a meeting in the Russian city
of Vladikavkaz, some of which was shown on TV.
Mr Putin defended Russia’s incursion into South Ossetia and
urged Georgia to halt ‘aggression’ against the breakaway region.
‘From a legal point of view, Russia’s actions in South
Ossetia are totally legitimate,’ said Putin, who flew to the
city after attending the opening of the Olympics.
‘We urge the Georgian authorities to immediately stop their
aggression against South Ossetia, to stop all violations of all
standing agreements on a ceasefire and to respect the legal
rights and interests of other people.’
Soon afterwards the US, Nato and the EU called for an
immediate end to the fighting and the UN Security Council
convened a tense emergency session to try to prevent all-out
war.
Georgian forces say they have fought off attacks by Abkhazian
separatists, backed by Russian air raids, in the Kodori Gorge
region.
Russian forces invaded Abkhazia hours after taking control of
most of South Ossetia, said President Saakashvili.
As the conflict escalated rapidly, Mr Saakashvili said his
country had formally moved to a state of war and offered an
immediate ceasefire.
He said Moscow had been planning the assault for months,
accused Russia of actions similar to Stalin’s invasion of
Finland in 1939 and said ‘the entire post-Cold War order of
Europe and the world is at stake’.
Foreign journalists witnessed an air attack on the town of
Gori early yesterday morning and the Georgian government claimed
Russian bombers had ‘completely devastated’ the Black Sea port
of Poti.
Russia has reportedly started to bomb civil and economic
infrastructure, including the military base at Senaki. Up to 11
Russian jets reportedly hit container tanks and a shipbuilding
plant at Poti.
Moscow has announced it would send reinforcements into South
Ossetia and President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged to ‘force the
Georgian side to peace’.
Colonel Igor Konashenkov, a Russian infantry officer, said
units of the 58th army had arrived in Tskhinvali overnight and
would seek to ‘establish peace. Additional ‘special units’ would
arrive ‘in the next few hours’.
Columns of Russian tanks plunged the two neighbours into war
as they filed into South Ossetia yesterday, marking the
Kremlin’s first military assault on foreign soil since the
Afghanistan intervention, which ended in 1989.
South Ossetia won de-facto independence in a war that ended
in 1992 but has been a source of tension ever since.
Russian peacekeepers have suffered 15 dead and 150 wounded,
the peacekeeping forces were quoted as saying by Russian news
agencies.
‘Now our peacekeepers are waging a fierce battle with regular
forces from the Georgian army in the southern region of
Tskhinvali,’ a representative of the Russian force was quoted as
saying by Interfax.
Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, who fled with her family to Dzhava, a
village near the border with Russia, said: ‘I saw bodies lying
on the streets, around ruined buildings and in cars. It’s
impossible to count them now.’
The greatest mismatch in history
of war
Georgia’s war with Russia is a David and Goliath battle that,
military experts say, the Black Sea state has no chance of
winning.
The Georgians are outnumbered and outgunned in every
department. Russia has about 697,000 troops, while Georgia has
only 19,500 full-time regulars.
And with Russia’s 1,200 combat aircraft confronting Georgia’s
seven outmoded support planes, and 6,000 tanks against 100
ageing machines, there is no contest.
Matthew Clements, Eurasia editor for Jane’s Defence journal,
said last night: ‘The Georgian military cannot withstand a full
Russian assault.
'The Russians have total air superiority and their
coordinated operation gives the Georgians no chance of
resisting.’
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