South Ossetia was Georgian territory and defected. Georgia "invaded" what they considered to be their territory, Russia retaliated. The primary reason Russia retaliated is because on the wider scheme of things, Georgia is a close ally of the US. Otherwise they wouldn't have been interested.
South Ossetia, an
independent partially recognized republic in the
South Caucasus, formerly the
South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republicwith its capital in
Tskhinvali, held a
referendum on independence on November 12, 2006. The voters answered the question: "should South Ossetia preserve its present status of a
de facto independent state?" 99% of voters supported independence. It coincided with
de facto South Ossetian presidential elections, which took place on the same day.
99% of South Ossetians considered themselves independent yet Georgia considered it to be their territory and interestingly the EU did not consider the referendum valid - wonder if a referendum did happen in Crimea how would the EU react if there was majority opinion to join Russia - Russia is damned if it holds a
farce referendum, and damned if it does not wait for a referendum and instead invades and annexes Russian majority areas
Russia retaliated because South Ossetia is majority Russian and falls within it's sphere of influence, same as Crimea
Again, not saying what Russia is doing is correct - but Russia has not yet invaded any area which does not have a significant Russian population - their modus operandi is to give passports to these people when they are still citizens of another country, and then later move in claiming to defend Russian people. It is a farce alright - in execution - but even the staunchest anti Russia crusaders would recognize that Ukraine is on the brink of a civil war and the pro EU and pro Russia factions
will harm each other, so Russia is partially right in being worried about the safety of pro Russia Ukrainians
They have gone about it in the wrong way, but so have n number of western regimes who preach democracy when it suits them, only to prop up friendly dictatorships when "democracy" is achieved - wonder what is happening to Libya right now? Or Iraq, or any of the South American regimes of the past?
How does the average Brit support Falklands and yet not support Crimea when they essentially are the same thing is beyond me - if anything the Falklands is geographically distant from the UK and can still be called a de facto colony, when on the other hand Crimea was part of Russia for the last 250 odd years
Mind numbing double standards at play
