The first shots

There is a lot in the papers today analysing the events of the past week in the Caucasus.

It is worth reading the Sunday Times though in particular.

Mark Franchetti's report looks at how the conflict started and the events of 1st August.On that date he reveals there was an explosion

believed to have been planted by South Ossetian separatists sympathetic to Russia, Five Georgian policemen were injured, one severely. That night Georgian forces struck back. There was a furious firefight that left six South Ossetian rebels dead

It now appears that the events could well have been pre planned by the Russians

It now appears that August 1 was a well-prepared “provocation” – one of the Kremlin’s favourite tactics. Pavel Felgengauer, a Moscow authority on military affairs, claimed in Novaya Gazeta that the plan was for the “Ossetians to intentionally provoke the Georgians” so that “any response, harsh or soft, would be used as an occasion for the attack”. At last Russia was going to teach the Georgians a lesson. Moscow’s relations with the tiny nation of 5m had begun to deteriorate when Mikhail Saakashvili swept to power nearly five years ago.

Saakashvili had been swept to power ona tide of Georgian nationalism and had promised the electorate that he would

bring South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another pro-Russian separatist region flanking the Black Sea, back under Tbilisi’s control.

Whether this was a Russian provoked beginning that now seems to be on the point of re igniting the Cold War,only time will tell