Steve LeVine covers foreign affairs for BusinessWeek. He previously was correspondent for Central Asia and the Caucasus for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for 11 years. His first book, The Oil and the Glory, a history of the former Soviet Union through the lens of oil, was published in October 2007. Putin’s Labyrinth, his new book, profiles Russia through the lives and deaths of six Russians. It was released this week.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner



A Blog on Russia, Central Asia and
the Caucasus

Thursday, August 30, 2007

What Plane?

There has been silence from both Tbilisi and Moscow in the days since Georgia claimed it shot down a Russian military aircraft. The upshot: The two disputatious neighbors have taken the sensible route away from confrontation, which is -- pretend nothing happened.

Steve's comment: Last weekend, it looked like tension could rise considerably between Georgia and Russia after Georgia claimed it had shot at the jet on Aug. 23. Georgia said it saw the plane go down and then a fire erupt in an isolated part of the forest, possibly in Georgia proper, and possibly in the breakaway Black Sea region of Abkhazia.

There was concern because it is one thing to claim that Russia has violated one's airspace -- which Georgia has done with some regularity -- and quite another to shoot down that violator.

There were the usual Russian denials and Georgian vows to prove what they said. Since then, however, both sides have held fire.

The only one talking a bit has been Abkhazia, which says it, too, saw something in the sky and a fire. The verdict? Space debris, say the Abkhaz.

Good enough.

Labels: , ,

posted by Steve at

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home