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Cross us and we will crush you, warns Medvedev
President Dimitry Medvedev delivered his most hawkish statement yet in the current Georgian crisis today when he warned that any further aggression against Russian citizens would prompt a "crushing response".
This includes, one guesses, the ethnic Russians who have been recently issued Russian passports - in Ukraine and the Baltic republics. Expect Sudeten-like riots in the near future in the "near abroad". Those passports are weapons.
If I were running the Latvian government I'd be getting worried. I'd be talking to my NATO allies and make sure they're serious about protecting me.
Mr Medvedev, the former technocrat who is generally seen as the more conciliatory voice of the Kremlin duumvirate, told Second World War veterans in the Russian city of Kursk that Russia had the power to counter any threat against its citizens.

His statement came as Russia appeared to be dragging its heels in withdrawing its troops from Georgia amid growing international demands that it implements a ceasefire deal signed last week.

"If anyone thinks that they can kill our citizens and escape unpunished, we will never allow this. If anyone tries this again, we will come out with a crushing response," Mr Medvedev said, according to Reuters. "We have all the necessary resources, political, economic and military. If anyone had any illusions about this, they have to abandon them."
Ok, liberalhawk - this is the use of hard power.
Tony Halpin, a Times correspondent, said that Russian troops were still manning checkpoints on the road from Tbilisi to the strategic town of Gori near the border with the disputed enclave of South Ossetia, where the conflict erupted 10 days ago.
I wonder if that agreement includes the Chechen mercs and the S.O. paramilitaries? The Russkies appear to be on the same departure schedule as the Soviets' when the Sovs evacuated northern Persia after WWII.
Mr Medvedev's statement will be seen as a warning not just to Georgia against any further military action in South Ossetia or breakaway Abkhazia but other former Soviet republics including the Baltic states, which have large and restive Russian minorities.

Mr Medvedev, facing his first international crisis since taking over the Kremlin's top job in May from Vladimir Putin, said that Russia did not want to spoil relations with anyone but demanded respect. "We do not want a deterioration of international relations, we want to be respected. We want our people, our values to be respected," he said. "We have always been a peace-loving state. Practically there is not a single occasion in the history of the Russian or Soviet state when we first started military actions. We have not attacked anyone, we only secured the rights and dignity of people as peacekeepers."
Oh boy. "Russian or Soviet"? And he's supposed to be the "nice guy".
Posted by: mrp 2008-08-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=247524