чевидно беше, че основната цел на Руската агресия срещу Грузия едва ли е незначителната(голяма колкото Монако) провинция Южна Осетия.
Русия се опитва да прекъсне снабдяването с нефт и газ на Европейския съюз по алтернативните трасета през Грузия е е започнала бомбардировки на нефтопровода.
Georgia: Russia targets key oil pipeline with over 50 missiles
By Damien McElroy in Rustavi, Georgia
Last Updated: 7:05PM BST 10 Aug 2008
Deep craters pockmark the landscape south of the Georgian capital Tblisi in a Y-shaped pattern straddling the British-operated pipeline.
The attack left two deep holes less than 100 yards either side of a pressure vent on the pipeline. Shrapnel of highly engineered munitions litters the area.
There was no visible damage to the pipeline. Its vulnerability is summed up by a yellow hazard sign next to the vent warning against digging in the area. Anyone venturing on to the site is warned against smoking.
Local police recorded 51 strikes. "I have no doubt they wanted to target the pipeline, there is nothing else here," said Giorgi Abrahamisvili, a policeman who witnessed the attack.
"It was terribly intense, the smell of cordite spread everywhere. I had to abandon my car and hide in a ditch but the jets weren't interested in other targets."
BP operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports one per cent of the world's oil needs, or one million barrels a day from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. A spokesman played down the impact of the strike, pointing out that pumping was suspended last week because of a terrorist attack in Turkey.
"At the moment the pipeline is not running at any capacity, because there was a fire," the spokesman said.
Georgia is a crucial link in a three country energy corridor vital to Western Europe's oil and gas supply. The £2 billion pipeline is the only major conduit for Central Asian resources not under Russian control.
The Kremlin under Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president and now prime minister, used gas exports to Europe as a tool of foreign policy.
Reduced supplies to eastern Europe forced Russia's neighbours to curtail pro-Western ambitions. Western Europe, especially Germany, is dangerously vulnerable to reduced supplies from Russia at times of political tension.
Georgian politicians accused Russia of waging the war, which Moscow has portrayed as an intervention on behalf of beleaguered renegade enclaves, to achieve wider strategic goals.
"They need control of energy routes," the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili said. "They need sea ports. They need transportation infrastructure. And primarily, they want to get rid of us."
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, alluded to the importance of the pipeline as he prepared to travel to Georgia and Russia on a mediation mission. He said: "The strategic nature of this region is a secret for no one."
Attacks beyond the borders of the two disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia provoked a mixture of fear and anger among Georgians, who see Russia at war with the country as a whole.
"Churchill should never have helped the Soviet Union," said a local police chief. "I am not a Nazi but Russia is a curse in the world."
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