13/08/2008 10:59:31 am
Cease-Fire. The Russian government has thus agreed with the EU and OSCE to stop the fighting. It is still unclear whether they have fulfilled their part of the deal. In any case, there are now Russian troops in Georgia, so a mere cease-fire is of course insufficient; they have to leave.

There are many signs showing that Russia provoked this war. One story is this. Another is the fact that there were signs of the cyber war already in July - long before the incidents on August 7 in South Ossetia that Russia used as an excuse for military intervention. Read the New York Times here.

There are conclusions that we can make already. The EU has to be united and firm in the upcoming political process. Russia must respect the sovereignty of other countries. In order to do that, there has to be a European military force. Europe also has to get rid of the dependence on Russian gas, and the obvious response would be nuclear power.