Georgia-Russia conflict could be drawn out

By Chris Baldwin - Analysis

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Conflict between Georgia and an increasingly assertive Russia has long been in the making and there is no certainty it will end quickly despite the enormous disparity of their forces.

Tensions exploded on Friday when Georgia tried to take back control of the rebel region of South Ossetia with tanks and rockets, and Russia sent forces to repel the assault. Fighting raged around South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali.

Conflicts between Georgia and South Ossetia and another breakaway republic, Abkhazia, began when the Soviet Union broke up almost two decades ago. Violence has flared occasionally, but signs have increasingly pointed to a major showdown.

The roots of the recent conflict are threefold, said analyst Svante Cornell, co-director of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy and an expert on Georgia.

"It boils down to Kosovo independence, NATO's Bucharest summit and possibly also Russian internal politics and the transfer of power," Cornell told Reuters by telephone.

In February, Russian diplomats said Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia would stir up strife in the Balkans and linked Kosovar status to separatist areas Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Western states backed Kosovo.

In Romania in April, NATO leaders made a vague pledge to invite ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance at some future point. In response, then-president of Russia Vladimir Putin promised more support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In May, Putin stepped down after two terms and his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated president. Putin did not leave power though, and soon he was appointed prime minister and is still seen as the leader of the country.

Cornell said Russia has seized upon a moment to assert itself in South Ossetia when Europe is unwilling to anger at Moscow and the United States is distracted by domestic elections. He suggested Georgia had fallen into an Ossetian provocation.

"Irrespective of who triggered this recent action, the general direction of Russian policy is clear, which is: We are taking control of these territories, and we're not even pretending that we're not," Cornell said.

CHECKERBOARD

Unlike Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast, South Ossetia is not a wholly integral territory with congruent borders. Instead it is a checkerboard of villages and towns in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, interspersed with islands of Georgia proper.

The majority of South Ossetia's 70,000 people are ethnically distinct from Georgians and look to Moscow rather than Tbilisi.

Most of the violent clashes in the region this year had been over nearby Abkhazia, with troop deployments, downings of drone airplanes and Russian warplane incursions into Georgian airspace all leading Tbilisi to say war was "very close".

When a muscular Georgian military response came on the heels of what Cornell and security analyst Pavel Felgenhauer both called Ossetian provocations, the logistical advantage Tbilisi enjoyed over Moscow in the fight became apparent.