Quote:
Originally Posted by lendaddy
I missed the part where Russia went to the UN for approval. You have to be quite intellectually lazy or stupid to relate these two actions.
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This is how Russia is going to defend it's position.
This is from an interview with the deputy Prime Minister.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/default.stm
Sackur: "Russia attacked a sovereign nation. What you did was illegal!"
Ivanov: "No, I disagree, we believe what we did was perfectly legal. We were defending Russian citizens. Our 300 Russian peacekeepers are an internationally recognized force. Saakashvili conducted ethnic cleansing, genocide on the citizens of South Ossetia. Russian citizens and Russian peacekeepers were killed. Those are actionable charges."
Sackur: "Your government is claiming that elderly and children were gunned down, tanks running over civilians, people forced into cellars and burned alive. Those are sensational charges. Can you verify any of that? Are foreign journalists welcome in South Ossetia to verify these claims?"
Ivanov: "Yes, they're WELCOME. My answer to you is WELCOME! Come verify for yourself. Our military prosecutors are already documenting it. We have eyewitnesses, we have video."
Sackur: "You bombed targets all over Georgia, far outside of South Ossetia."
Ivanov: "We struck military targets that were supporting the operations in South Ossetia. Georgia continued to shell the main city and villages from inside of Georgiafrom artillery systems. We struck those targets to save civilian lives."
Sackur: "There are many leaders in the West that are 'gravely concerned' about Russia's actions"
Ivanov: "Why are they gravely concerned? Russia has not attacked any nation or threatened any nation militarily unless we were attacked."
Sackur: "Are you concerned that this will affect WTO status? The US wants a G7 discussion of getting rid of Russia as a G8 member."
Ivanov: "Why should it? What we did was defend Russian citizens, a legitimate right we have. We did not start this, Georgia did. Any civilized nation would have responded the same way we did."
Sackur: "US presidential candidates McCain and Obama are virtually competing on how they would deal with this latest action by Russia against a sovereign nation.
Ivanov: "We did exactly what any civilized nation would do to protect its citizens."
Sackur was stumped cold...but it was an excellent interview. Sergei Ivanov is completely fluent in English and had no problems fielding and returning HardTalk hard-balls from Sackur.
It was very clear Russia is very angry and is not going to back up...even one inch.
There you have it, folks. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister on BBC Hardtalk clearly stating that acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide were perpetrated against South Ossetia and Russian citizens. And US and Israeli troops were involved. You will all learn that soon enough.