Archive for the ‘Georgia’ Category
Posted on March 6, 2010 - by Venik
Saakashvili to submit to a drug test?
The president of Georgia decided to go along with the proposal by an opposition parliament member Dmitri Lordkipanidze to test all government employees for illegal drugs. Saakashvili said that the test will require a single hair and that he will offer his shortly. In other news, Saakashvili shaved his head bald… Lordkipanidze’s suggestion of drug-testing [...]
Posted on February 17, 2010 - by Venik
Safety of Luge
The tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashvili on the luge track in Vancouver is the cause of online discussion about safety of this sport. Many criticize track designers and organizers of the Games for the track’s perceived lax safety standards. Others wonder if safety is even possible in a sport where one rides a tiny sled [...]
Posted on October 1, 2009 - by Venik
War in Georgia: Reviewing EU Findings
As some of you may have heard, the international fact-finding mission (IIFFMCG) organized by the EU to investigate the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia has finally released its final report. As was expected, most of the blame for starting the war went to Georgia. Russia’s “fault”, according to the investigators, for the most part [...]
Posted on August 10, 2009 - by Venik
Delusions in Tbilisi
Recently Russian online news service Lenta.ru published a Q&A session with a well-known Georgian political and military analyst Mamuka Areshidze, who is known for his anti-Kremlin attitudes but is also somehow not a particularly big supporter of Georgian El Duce. In other words, Areshidze is supposedly a moderate, a centrist and so his take on [...]
Posted on August 7, 2009 - by Venik
Happy Anniversary, Misha
Tweeter celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Georgian-Russian war by setting it’s Web servers on fire. (For those of you with long-term memory problem, here is a brief recap of the events.) The Unix gurus at Tweeter’s datacenter blamed the downtime on unspecified hackers unleashing a DDoS attack. According to some networking experts interviewed by [...]
Posted on July 21, 2009 - by Venik
Saakashvili’s War
Entirely in line with his suspected drug abuse problem, Saakashvili is now waging war of words on the Wall Street Journal. In Georgia’s President Vows Changes (by Andrew Osborn, WSJ 2009-07-20) the following quote appeared: “He also called the hopes of Georgia joining NATO “almost dead.” “It’s tragic,” he said. “It means the Russians fought [...]
Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Venik
Costly NATO Ambitions
Besieged in his new glass-domed presidential palace in Tbilisi by thousands of protesters demanding his resignation, Mikheil Saakashvili is desperately searching for any opportunity to strengthen his slipping hold on power. The EU, rattled by the brief but eventful 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, is almost just as anxious to help Misha keep [...]
Posted on April 3, 2009 - by Venik
Georgian Navy auctions sunken ships
Georgian media reports that the country’s Navy auctioned off three of its ships sank by the Russians during the brief war between the two countries in August of last year. The bidding on the lot of three sunken patrol boats still cluttering Poti naval base started at $10. The winner at $61,000 was Gem Aidemir, [...]
Posted on February 16, 2009 - by Venik
Tornado in Georgia
For the first time in recorded history a tornado touched down in Georgia’s western coastal region of Megrelia. There were no casualties, but some 120 homes and electric power lines were heavily damaged. Due to its proximity to the Black Sea, Megrelia is known for occasional heavy winds in the winter months. However, this was [...]
Posted on January 29, 2009 - by Venik
Russia to reopen airbase in Abkhazia
According to reports in the Russian media, the Bomborski airbase in Abkhazia is soon to be reopened for use by the Russian Air Force. The plan calls for two squadrons of Su-27 fighter-bombers and Su-25 ground attack aircraft, plus some additional An-26 or An-72 transports to be permanently based in Abkhazia. The Bomborski airbase is [...]
Posted on November 17, 2008 - by Venik
Exploding UAVs in Georgia
After nearly four months of ridiculous allegations against Russia, Saakashvili’s regime still has the capacity to surprise. In the latest PR move, Georgian so-called leadership claimed that a Russian UAV crashed on its territory and later exploded, killing two policemen and injuring eight others. If this claim was true, this would have been the first [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Photos: Russians in Georgia
“The 2008 South Ossetia War was a land, air and sea war fought between Georgia on one side, and Russia, and the break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other. A civil war fought after the breakup of the Soviet Union left parts of South Ossetia in control of an unrecognized separatist government [...]
Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Venik
Saakashvili’s Endgame
As waning wartime patriotism in Georgia gives way to realistic assessments of the facts, Saakashvili can now see the end of his political career rapidly approaching. As predicted, the situation in Tbilisi is developing rapidly and Saakashvili may be expected to make his endgame early next year, probably soon after Obama’s inaugural speech in Washington. [...]
Posted on October 23, 2008 - by Venik
Jane’s is Jumping to Conclusions
Reuters ran a story on the recent study by Jane’s Strategic Advisory Services. I have a Jane’s subscription, but I couldn’t find the report on their site and so I will rely on the few passages quoted by Reuters. “A central problem is that of a Russian political and military leadership commitment to a Cold [...]
