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From: <>
To:
> I do deserve your complaints of my bad behaviour, but I try to improve my E-mail writing skills (or at least frequency) now when I have been evacuated from Tbilisi.
The situation in Georgia is really bad and when I was out in the city
midnight between Monday and Tuesday, a complete panic was wery close. Both civilians and armed Georgian soldiers were really running scared and waited for the Russians to enter Tbilisi any minute. Luckily Saakasvili managed to calm the situation during his midnight TV speech and people did not start escaping Tbilisi in chaos. All the embassies evacuated their external staff on Monday and Tuesday (US did on Sunday already) and I and T were also told to leave on Tuesday. We spent 10 hours in a Swedish Embassy bus to Armenia and then waited another day to find any flight from Yerevan which wasn't fully booked out. I arrived in Finland late Thursday
night.
Our Disevi people managed to get safe to Tbilisi and to my knowledge also Ns parents from Avneuli-Neli. Also Ia's parents managed to leave Gori almost last moment on Sunday and are safe in Tbilisi.
Russians are behaving as they always do when they want to make a point. During last 2-3 weeks there was a continuously incerasing handgun and rifle fire from Ossetian separatist side to Georgian side including during last week with mortars and rocket propelled granades hitting hard also our Avneuli-Neli village. However warned not to be provocated Saakashvili did what he did and the Russians got a good reason to react with full force.
Air srikes to all airports and Poti harbour as well as taking Gori were
performed just to show how vulnerable Georgia is against Russian army and how quickly one third of the country can be occupied and the main east-west connection can be broken. Gori is also a looting price for Ossetians and Kazachs looking for compensation after battles in Tskinvali.
According to the six-point cease-fire agreement negotiated by Sarkozy, Russians have a right to "effectuate additional security measures until special international mechanisms are set up".
Russians will keep on doing that as long as they are sure that everyone understands that they did not leave because of international pressure but because they just wanted to go by themselves. And of course they cannot allow Georgian police to start arresting Ossetian looters, so those guys have to be satisfied and gone from Gori before Georgian police force is allowed alone into the city.
No one can guess if the Russians are going to be satisfied if Abkhasia is given Kosovo-type of independence and whole South-Ossetia with slightly more clear borders is given under their control or do they want a specific independence statement also for South-Ossetia and some extra demilitarised security area aroud its borders reaching as far as the big Georgian military complex in Gori. It seems that ousting Saakashvili is not as high in the Russian agenda as before, but it might pop up again if they feel that they can get all they want.
How are you doing? How does this crisis look when you are able to have some more distance?
Best Regards
M
