Georgian police in standoff with masked men near South Ossetia
Source: Stars and Stripes
KHURVALETI, Georgia — A small group of masked and armed men, believed to be Russian soldiers, entered Georgian territory on Thursday morning, but their intentions were unclear.
The incident was unfolding very close to one of Georgia’s main highways, near the country’s contentious border with breakaway South Ossetia.
Last week, Georgian officials reported that Russia had attempted to grab a mile-long slice of a critical oil export pipeline near South Ossetia.
The armed masked men were seen taking video at a position where Russian forces are believed to have put a sign earlier in the week that would extend South Ossetia’s boundary deeper into Georgia proper.
Read more: http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/georgian-police-in-standoff-with-masked-men-near-south-ossetia-1.358236
From July 14th 2015
Georgia has accused Russia of violating international law after it erected new “border” markings in the disputed South Ossetia region, effectively seizing part of a BP-operated oil pipeline in the process.
While European leaders were focused on resolving the Greek crisis over the weekend, Russian troops were installing the new signs, pushing their self-declared border several hundred metres deeper into Georgian territory.
“We’ve lost most of our fields,” said a farmer from Tsitelubani, one of the villages in central Georgia affected by the move. “The Russians said we are no longer allowed there.” According to Georgia’s foreign ministry, the move means that a one-mile (1.5km) section of the Baku-Supsa pipeline beneath this farmland is now in what it called occupied territory.
It is the latest in a series of similar surprise Russian operations, which critics say are part of its creeping annexation of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian territory.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/14/georgia-accuses-russia-of-violating-international-law-over-south-ossetia
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