Solzhenitsyn Dies – Putin Invades Georgia

We didn't intend that this would be our headline for today, but shit happens.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died last week. So it goes.

War has broken out on the border between East and West…. again.

This time the conflict is in South Ossetia, currently part of Georgia but inhabited mostly by ethnic Ossetians, who speak a language remotely related to Farsi. Here's how Russia Today sees it:

The Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. Vasil Sikharulidze called on the international community to pressure Russia to end their military aggression in Georgia.

Maybe we can draw the parallels with the same situation during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany entered Czechoslovakia under the cover of protecting its ethnic Germans.

The Russian Prime Minister is in China to watch the Olympic games at the moment, along with George W. Bush and many other world leaders. Vladimir Putin commented that:

It's a great pity that this has happened during the opening of the Olympic games, which has always been a day when the guns went silent, but the Georgian leadership have resorted to very aggressive actions against the people of South Ossetia. This is very sad and a worrying development, which of course we will have to respond to.

Whilst Mr. Putin enjoys the games, the people of South Ossetia are hiding in their cellars:

Since he is no longer President of the Russian Federation, and therefore no longer Supreme Commander-in-Chief, I am sure Mr. Putin's intentions in this matter are purely humanitarian, and he takes no interest whatsoever in the energy resources of the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

I don't suppose he loses much sleep these days over the oil riches around the Falkland Islands or in the Fertile Crescent either.