Georgia on Wednesday slammed Russia’s plans to boost peacekeeping troops in two rebel Georgian regions as the start of "full-scale military aggression". "It’s hard to believe that this is being done for the purposes of peacekeeping; it’s rather the beginning of full-scale military aggression," Georgian Foreign Minister David Bakradze said.
Russia accused Georgia on Tuesday of planning to invade the breakaway republic of Abkhazia and said it was sending more troops to the region. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Georgia had amassed more than 1 500 troops in the mountainous Upper Kodori valley — a small but strategic enclave inside the separatist territory but controlled by Georgian forces.
No image available
/ 22 January 2008
It was one of the highlights of the Soviet calendar — a chance for the communist superpower to show off its military might and for ordinary citizens to check that their gerontocratic leaders were still alive. But 17 years after the last hammer-and-sickle tanks trundled through Red Square, the Kremlin is to revive the Soviet-era practice of parading its big weaponry.