Heavy fighting between Georgian and Russian forces broke out late Thursday in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia, which borders Russia and has warm relations with Moscow. Fighting continued Monday, while smaller clashes were reported in and around Abkhazia, another separatist region.
Following are questions and answers about the background of the region and the conflict.
Q: Why did the conflict start?
A: Accounts differ widely. Tensions had soared in South Ossetia in recent weeks amid accusations by each side that the other was staging attacks as provocations. Pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who had called a unilateral cease-fire just hours before the major fighting began, has said Georgia began the assault of Tskhinvali, the regional capital, in response to separatist violations of the cease-fire. He also said it was a response to Russia sending in troops in support of the separatists. Russia and the separatists accuse Saakashvili of treachery and say the troops entered in response to Georgia's barrage.
Q: What was Georgia's strategy?
A: Georgia could hardly have believed that its small military could win on the battlefield against Russia's overwhelmingly greater manpower and equipment. If Georgia had a strategy, it may have centered on the assumption that Russia would not risk international censure by mounting a massive and brutal response. Or Georgia may have intended to provoke a response. Moscow's heavy attack has allowed Georgia, which has ambitions of joining NATO, to portray the conflict as evidence that Russia poses a threat not just to Georgia but to other European nations.
Q: What is Russia's strategy?
A: Militarily, Russia's strategy is to throw a crushing wave of manpower and armor into the conflict. Politically, it portrays the moves as necessary to protect its citizens and the peacekeeping forces that were already deployed in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, another Georgian separatist region, before the hostilities. Most residents of the regions were granted Russian passports after they split off from Georgia in fighting in the 1990s. It is unclear whether Russia would try to take permanent control of pieces of Georgia outside the two separatist regions. Such a move would bring international condemnation, but Russia so far has angrily dismissed world criticism and international calls for a cease-fire.
Q: What is the position of the United States and the West?
A: U.S. President George W. Bush and his Western allies have sharply criticized Russia's military response to Georgia's attack on South Ossetia as disproportionate, and the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations (including the U.S.) urged Russia to accept an immediate cease-fire and agree to international mediation. Bush, who has encouraged Georgia's efforts to join NATO, spoke directly with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Beijing, where he said he condemned the bombing. But the U.S. and the West as a whole have little leverage to stop the fighting.
NATO's Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has criticized Russia for violating the "territorial integrity" of Georgia and called for talks aimed at restoring Georgian control over its breakaway province. He also urged an immediate cease-fire. The alliance in April rebuffed Georgia's request to start on the path to membership.
Q: Weren't there Russian troops in South Ossetia before the current crisis?
A: An agreement ending South Ossetia's separatist war in 1992 allowed troops from Russia, the Russian province of North Ossetia, South Ossetia and Georgia to act as peacekeepers. Georgia alleged the Russian contingent supported the separatists. It also complained that the four-party "joint control commission" that was to work out the region's final status was weighted against Georgia.
Q: What do the separatists want?
A: Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia primarily want to be divorced from Georgia, which they accuse of cruelty against their ethnic groups. South Ossetia's rebels appear to favor incorporation into Russia, whose North Ossetia province contains their ethnic brethren. Abkhazia's separatists lean more toward independence, but are well-disposed to Russia and could opt for incorporation.
Q: Who are the Georgians?
A: The people descend from an array of tribes, many of which avidly maintain their cultural traditions but are united by speaking Georgian _ a famously difficult language that uses a unique alphabet. The Ossetian language is not related to Georgian; Abkhazian is sometimes grouped as a distant cousin to Georgian. Georgia is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian, but has been hospitable to Islam and Judaism. Georgians often claim to have invented wine, and wine is central to the culture, regarded as a sacred beverage that must not be drunk without a toast, preferably elaborate.
Q: Who are the Ossetians?
A: The Ossetians are an ethnic group scattered throughout Georgia, Russia and Turkey. Of the estimated 700,000 Ossetians worldwide, some 500,000 live in Russia, largely in the province of North Ossetia; some 60-70,000 lived in South Ossetia. Renowned conductor Valery Gergiev is probably the world's most prominent ethnic Ossetian.
Q: Why is it called Georgia?
A: In Georgian, the country's name is Sakartvelo. Foreigners began referring to it as Georgia centuries ago, apparently because St. George is the country's patron saint.
