one small example of russian duplicity. the russian government also agreed with abkhazia and s.ossetia that they could become part of the russian federation in july 2008. this was published in the russian press.

on the days before the georgian assault georgian villages were bombarded by s.ossetian rebels, using artillery supplied by the russian peacekeepers, artillery larger than the russian enforced peacedeal allowed.

the georgians also spent days trying to arrange peace talks with kokioty the s.ossetian leader.

it is a matter of public record from transcrips of russian tv interviews that kokoity refused these advances to discuss peace.

While I am sure you feel very superior to those people who believe Russia launched a spontaneous, irrational attack on Georgia, by believing Georgia launched a spontaneous, irrational attack on a breakaway region of Georgia, but unfortunately you are just as ill-informed.

I disagreed with most of Bush's foreign policy, but I am amazed at a certain unique American egocentricity and self-loathing that when Russia provokes, plans and then executes a brutal, cynical and deceptive incursion into an independent sovereign country, the knee-jerk response is to say 'it must be all our governments fault'.

Putin mentioned South Ossetia and Abhazia specifically when warning of consequences when Kosovo declared independence in early 2008. This was followed by attacks on Georgian villagers, policemen and peacekeepers in the controlled areas of South Ossetia. The Russians also built up troops on the border and inside Georgia and regularly violated Georgian airspace. The Russians wanted a war and they got it. Meanwhile Europe and the UN ignored Georgian protests about their territory being effectively annexed. If you had followed the events in Georgia prior to the conflict you would have seen this. In fact do yourself a favour and go and read any article written on Georgia prior to August.

'But Georgia started it' has become the rallying soundbite of either the ignorant or those who wish to gloss over typical Kremlin brutality and cynicism in the Caucasus.

As someone with friends and family in Georgia I welcome anything that can be done by the international community to prevent the Russian government completing what they consider unfinished business, including a multinational NATO exercise.

Please see historical maps: http://gallery.abkhazworld.com/#4.41

The maps included here give an idea of the frontiers of Abkhazia at various times in history. The Abkhazians call their capital /Aqw’a/, but it is more usually known in other languages as Sukhum (Sukhum-Kalé or Sukhum-Kaleh in the period of Turkish influence along the Black Sea’s eastern coast; /soxumi/ in Georgian). The ending -i in the form /Sukhumi/ represents the Georgian Nominative case-suffix, and it became attached to /Sukhum/ from the late 1930s when (Georgian) Stalin and his Mingrelian lieutenant in Transcaucasia, Lavrent’i Beria, began to implement a series of anti-Abkhazian policies. Abkhazians today, for obvious reasons, resent the attachment of this element from the language of a people they see as oppressors.

For some 60 years Abkhazia was forced to accept the unwelcome status of being a mere autonomous republic with Soviet Georgia (thanks to the ruling of the Georgian dictator Stalin – ‘Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili’). For daring to defend our interests in the face of Georgian nationalist aggression, we were subjected to 14 months of savagery. In alliance with our allies from the Abkhazian diaspora or Abkhazians’ cousins in the North Caucasus, we succeeded in ejecting the invader and winning the war. All that Georgia under its various leaders/governments has been willing to offer us by way of a settlement is a return to the ‘status quo ante’— the sudden offer by Misha Saakashvili of asymmetric federation produced on the eve of the recent NATO summit in Bucharest was clearly aimed more at impressing the Western alliance than at appealing to Sukhum.

How many examples are there in history where a people after being invaded, losing 4% of their population, and yet finally winning the war have meekly resigned themselves to accepting the selfsame subordinate status they had before the tragedy of a war inflicted upon them? This is something that the Georgian side and their international backers (who have no interest in the fate of minorities but think solely of the ‘big picture’ of preserving territorial integrity, of finding allies in an unstable part of the world, and of securing the flow of oil) would do well to remember. The Georgians lost Abkhazia in 1993. They should be told by their EU, NATO and US ‘friends’ to accept this fact, find a ‘modus vivendi’ with their neighbours (big and small alike), and then contribute to the creation of stability and prosperity for the Caucasus region as whole. We can all then get on with our lives in the peace that we all deserve.

"That face of his I do remember well;

Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmear'd

As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war."

Your analyst will no doubt have more to say when Putin responds tit for tat with knight moves very close to our homeland. (He's warned once already, quite clearly.)

At that stage of a much edgier game, winsome chat will be moot and the watching world will have a firm opinion as to who picked the stupid fight.