Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 191 - 2008 Russo-Georgian War Part 2: Grand Theft Navy

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

The war begins and ends. Russia steals an entire navy. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me is Liam. Hello, Liam. Hi, Joe. How are you doing today, buddy? Oh, I'm doing swell,e what do you what do you have on deck for drinking during this podcast uh i have a sparkling ice plus caffeine strawberry citrus i am uh i was expecting a an ipa of some kind so i know but i uh i just i just had a conversation

about my drinking and i felt a little bad. That's good. I'm actually not feeling bad, but not drinking so much. I recently stopped drinking almost entirely. How do you? Honestly, I feel great. I'm sure you do, asshole. It's only been like two months, and I cut down to only having a couple beers on the weekend. Sure.

And not only have I started sleeping much better, I lost like 10 pounds. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I'm drinking water out of a cardboard box currently. Why? It's one of those things where... Oh, is it because you can't drink water normally because of the Navy? Yes. Oh, yeah.

They're giving out water, various different kinds of water. Most of it's plastic bottles, like a ton of fucking plastic bottles. So I try not to put out so much trash and they also offer recyclable cardboard boxes to drink out of.

And I have to say, when you're driving so much trash. And they all also offer like recyclable car cardboard boxes to drink out of. Um, and I have to say when you're driving down the street, drinking out of a cardboard box, people look at it like they must think of drinking like box one as I'm driving down the road. It's going on, I guess normal Joe here doing normal stuff. Just don't mind me drinking out of my box.

Um, also it says like long shelf life life stable water um which i know it has something to do with the container not the water itself because like if you if you store water and plastic for a long period of time you can't drink that water no you get cancer um but like also it makes me think like why is this water shelf stable other than the obvious fact it's in cardboard um but yeah uh that's not on topic for what we're talking about today it almost never is yeah uh we're in part two of the russo-georgian war uh when we left you last time uh it was when russia accidentally lied their way into getting the u.s to believe that the republic of georgia

was in the front line of the war on terror uh and uh osama bin laden might be hanging out there osama bin laden just chilling in tbilisi having some good wine uh with yeah uh i i do need to lead into this again by hitting tapping the big sign above my recording desk that says this is not a pro-nato podcast uh or a pro-russia podcast or a particularly pro-american alone i don't think we've ever uncritically covered any country or person ever i i am actually pro-nato uh oh god uh i say things on purpose to upset you uh yeah i i'm trying to think i mean we've we've talked about uh people who were legitimately always thought of as good people and made sure to shit on them so like we're not pro anybody we're not even pro ourselves since the end of the cold war i don't know i think data might be a

little obsolete but i don't know enough to you know i i have no strong opinions other than like it's of course it's going to exist the same thing with like the CTSO is going to exist there's always going to be a superpower or near superpower definitely that there's always going to be a superpower or near

superpower state that dominates small nations I'm not saying this is always going to happen therefore it is good it's just like of course this fucking happens um right and those forces don't necessarily have to be good or bad in existence but what they do is good or bad and from what we have seen both of them suck uh at least in the modern age um so like i said when we left you last time georgia somehow got involved in the war on terror and this created a huge training program for their security forces

funded entirely by the united states because this is 2001 if you said that like we're here to fight terror you get a blank check written for you yeah the cia shows up and says all right thanks uh here's your here's your literal truckload of stinger missiles yeah i mean georgia is certainly communism but whatever joke works georgia wasn't exactly um thought of as high on the list uh because they weren't in the middle east they didn't have a large muslim population they were georgia only looked into this because a they were russia kept talking about it and b they were in opposition to russia so like the u.s could play the global war on terror game while also still saying fuck russia which of course is a twofer that we're gonna pick

10 times out of 10 um this led to the georgia train equip program, which I was a part of. That's right. Yes. Um, not a large part. Granted, remember, I was a very low, low ranking, bad soldier. Uh, but I, I was tangentially connected to that. And I feel like I need to point that out before someone like doxes me or whatever. Uh, Jocus Avian showing up on the, oh god the world of tanks uh wiki

gonna gonna leak stuff about the abrams to prove prove myself around the world of tanks for him yeah like i think i said last episode literally all i did is teach people how to use an m16 rifle um that's that's all i did don't come for me yeah uh noted cia agent random american tank crewman um not a very good one no i would have been fired from the cia for sure um but uh the the georgia train and equip program led to an influx of millions of dollars um probably hundreds of millions of dollars but it wasn't like it's over almost a decade. And it still goes on to a lesser extent today, but without the guise of it being

counterterrorism. Now it's fully in the form of fuck Russia. But it was hundreds of millions of dollars over almost a decade and not that many military trainers to do the job. It says hundreds in the book, but it's hundreds over the course of those years.

So it was just like 10 dudes. Yeah, I was there with literally a dozen people. That's it. So it wasn't a very large, robust training program. And we also didn't do a very good job because during the war, nobody used M16s. They immediately all went back to their AKs.

Which, to be fair, an M16 is a shit weapon. They were getting hand-me-downs uh that's that's what the united states does um this is around the same era that we stopped using the m16 for um like a normal battle rifle and we were left with just like tons of them laying around so we gave them out to everybody um these were decades old weapons with, you know, hit or miss maintenance, stuff like that. It wasn't exactly a gift. Is it better than AK-74, which is their standard battle weapon? It's a toss up, I guess, because 74 isn't a great weapon either, especially because most of these all date back to the 70s. But this led to an interesting problem within Russia.

Obviously, they were not happy about this arrangement, but they also acknowledged, fuck, we caused this. Also, remember... The assault with laws in Georgia. Yeah, he's on a fucking caucus vacation. And remember from the last episode, one of the things that Russia was supposed to do after the end of the first war was rebuild Georgia to include their security apparatus, which they never did. Yes, Georgia slowly flowed into the American sphere of influence, but that's only because the multiple failures of Russia. And they couldn't complain, really. Like, Russia couldn't be shitty about this openly. They're going to destroy it anyway.

They are. They absolutely are. They couldn't openly complain, mostly because they frame this as a part of the global war on terror. And remember, during this point, the Second Chechen War is ongoing. Oh, that's true. Okay.

So, like, they need to, in order to cover for their countless war crimes in Chechnya, they have to frame it as a war on terror. And yeah, we will eventually do the second Chechen war. Um, but none of this had to do with,

um, rebuilding Georgia for the American side as well. This was to purchase a U S ally for the war in Iraq. Uh, this is something that the U S did pretty openly throughout the global war on terror uh or at least the afghan and iraq wars i won't say the global war maybe yeah i mean that's why um the coalition of the willing was such an obvious joke because it was full of like tiny nations with armies of like maybe a dozen people or no army at all ic Iceland, who would end up as part of these coalitions or ISAF

in Afghanistan for seemingly no reason. And the reason why is because the US would just shower people with money that did this. They would pay for deployments. They would pay for the entire cost of that deployment. Sometimes they would pay the army's entire salary. Other times they would do it in exchange for a ton of modernization back home. And the reason

why Georgia did it is because while the US is pouring money into Georgia proper, a lot of training was going into the units that were going to Iraq. I think they just pulled guard duty around the Baghdad International Airport or something. They didn't do a whole whole lot but it gave an international veneer to this whole thing um and georgian soldiers would volunteer for this because they got paid more they got

paid like an extra 500 a month which is a lot at this point uh like that's more than most people would make in a month in the country on top of their normal salary. Right. So they're making a killing. Now, as the years went on, Russia continued to show it had no intention of being this middle ground of any kind of resolution between Georgia and the two breakaway separatist states, South Oshetia and Abkhazia. Mostly because Russia got pissy whenever Georgia tried to do anything you would expect a functional state to do. Now, Georgia

rightfully, in my opinion, began operating under the idea that Russia was the main destabilizing force in their entire country. Wonder how they came to that conclusion. Trying to see how that works. So their internal doctrine moved to, we need

to minimize Russia until they're gone. Right. The government began passing laws trying to strip away russian influence like taking over control of their own border with turkey which was being patrolled by russia all the way up until then and the closure of russian military bases within the country russia obviously fought this not because these bases were militarily important they absolutely were not for the motor influence and having a presence right in their backyard I imagine is helpful to Russia right

the same reason that everybody is like vocally against US military bases everywhere in the world is the same reason why Georgia was vocally against Russian military bases not to mention soldiers do fucked up shit. Well, dude, it's based when Russia does it.

Right. Soldiers are soldiers universally. Whenever US soldiers go anywhere, we commit crimes. And Russians do the same thing. Everywhere that Russian soldiers are stationed, mostly in the quote-unquote former Soviet states. It's been over 30 years. Let's stop calling them

former Soviet states. But they in the quote unquote former soviet states it's been over 30 years let's stop calling them former soviet states um but uh they do the same thing uh they would assault people get drunk get uh in the car accidents like there was um a case in armenia where a russian soldier killed like an entire family just wandered off post and machine gunned them and then was squirreled away to russia before he could stand charges. Yeah, they do the same thing we do. It's the same shit. In the United States a couple years ago, I believe in the Philippines, a Marine killed a transgender woman and got away with it. All the shit we've ever done to Okinawa.

Yes. Yeah. South Korea is another great example of what soldiers do when all they do is get drunk and break things. And Russian soldiers are absolutely no exception to that rule. So they wanted to get rid of them for multiple reasons. And like I said, these bases are not militarily important. Russia had pretty much stopped giving them money. pretty much stopped giving them money. They had fallen into disrepair and soldiers were left living in completely

decrepit, decaying barracks eating rotten food and shit like that. But like we pointed out, it's not about that. It's about what they represent. These bases represent two centuries of dominance over Georgia. And it would be goddamned if they were going to let that slip

away. Now, this brings us to the Rose Revolution of 2003. And no, I will not be hearing any bullshit about color revolutions in my comments. Fuck off. Now, if you haven't picked up on through the series yet, the Georgian government under Edward Shevardnadze was not democratic or even particularly good at their jobs. It was, in effect, a one-party state under various wings of the Citizens Union of Georgia.

I love a party state, Joe. Or a coug. I'm going to call them the coug. There was controlled opposition, but it was under wings of the same party. It's a very weird situation. And all of them are oligarchs.

During the interwar period, they were stripping the country bare for anything it was worth. The KUG was notoriously corrupt, like cartoonishly openly corrupt. Its elites became richer and richer while Georgians themselves suffered. People involved in the government stole

at least 30% of the total projected revenue from the state. And I say at least because some of them were very good at hiding it. That's just what anybody could find, which is a level of cryptocracy. I don't think I found many other places. Frankly, quite impressive. Yeah, it's impressive how shitty it is. It's almost like Bocasa levels of state thievery um now when you steal 30 of your operating budget that means that the state

can't function very well and it didn't so it should be no surprise that a full half of the population at this point in 2003 is under the poverty line these are all the reasons that people slowly got fucking mad at the Cug, rather than any extra political maneuvering behind the scenes. All of these problems and popular anger led to a fracture within the

Cug, and a real opposition party... Oh no, not the Cug. The Cug was broken. A real opposition movement led by a guy named Mikhail Shakisvili formed to challenge him for power. Now, over the next parliamentary elections, which most people except were won by Shakisvili's party, they were completely rigged, leading to him losing and then huge street protests. and then huge street protests. Now, here's something that's kind of funny, where somehow, simultaneously,

the Russians and the Americans swooped in on the same side of a guy, and that was Edward Shevardnadze. Who says we can't get along? Now, the Russians, obviously, were very close to Shevardnadze. Remember, he was a former Soviet minister, so they wanted to keep him in power, one, because he was obviously bad for Georgia, which means good for Russia.

And the U.S. wanted him to stay saying they're all CIA operatives and shit, despite decades of mismanagement, which Russia itself shared a hefty portion of blame for. Not to mention, the U.S. was fine with Shevardnadze. They had been funding the Georgian state and security apparatus for two years now. and security apparatus for two years now. And they were like his open and rampant corruption was well known in the US government and nobody gave a shit. Nobody gave a shit.

If anybody can crack a history book, point to some of the worst fucking people from history and be like, yeah, America probably gave him money and we would. Outside of maybe Hitler. Everybody after that, we're in there, baby. Now, if you're Henry Ford, maybe Hitler. Everybody after that, we're in there, baby. Now, if you're Henry Ford, also Hitler.

It's complicated, Joe. It's complicated. Nobody gave a shit. Like I said, the US mostly cared. I was really worried that if there's any kind of destabilization or an actual civil war, because remember, that had already happened very recently in Georgia,

that it would fuck up their efforts, terrorism would become an actual problem, and they would stop sending troops to support war efforts. So it's a problem. And before, like when we pointed out, that the U.S. only saw Georgia as a front line against terrorism with a minor in fucking with Russia. In order for the first plan to work, Georgia

had to function as a state, which revolutions and popular uprisings have a tendency to not be good at. That is why the State Department asked Shevardnadze to not resign despite public pressure and rather finish his term and then just not stand in the next election.

Right. If you could just resign in disgrace at the end, at the end, just stand down like a hero and then let your next handpicked guy steal the next election. And then, you know, people will probably calm down in a couple of years.

I will give you a Dodger. Just go with the plan. Oh, Edward Chavan, not say had mad amounts of Dodgers already. Not just fucking Dodger plan. Oh, Edward Chiavinazzi had mad amounts of dachas already. Mad dachas. Just fucking dacha drip. Now, it was only when it was obvious that Chiavinazzi was not going to stick around

that the U.S. openly began supporting Chiavaselli, hoping to continue their relationship going forward, which, of course, they did when Chiavaselli became president. America, I'm so good at this. Jacques Villiers is a funny story unto his own. I think he's been exiled like three times. This kid's coming back. At one point...

Oh, you thought! At one point, some journalists interviewed him, I believe at a bar in New York, because nobody else would have them. Where else but New York City, baby? We'll take your guy. I want to say it's New York City. I could be wrong. Now, the Russian response

to Shakisvili coming to power were pretty much immediate in both their actions and intent. They began flooding both Abkhazia and Osharia with heavy weapons, supplies, training, and more Russian peacekeepers,

which was something that the side feels like an oxymoron. Yeah. Right. Um, now that's something that both sides agreed on, uh, when the war ended, that peacekeepers would,

you know, make sure that the border didn't randomly erupt into violence, but they were supposed to be, there's supposed to be a strict limit to them. And Russia broke those limits immediately. Um, but there was supposed to be a strict limit to them, and Russia broke those limits immediately. I see. And the peacekeeper umbrella would be used to bring in tons of volunteers,

and we'll talk about that later. Right. They also began to mold these two states' politics into something more agreeable to their terms. Because remember, as much as people like to think this as being a little bit more than Russian puppet states or something, they had their very own goals for their very own people. For instance, Ludwig Chubirov, who is the prime minister of Oshetia,

had been working in what is mostly considered good faith with Georgian authorities since he'd been elected in 1996 and was waiting for a deal that would allow him to come back into Georgia with the reestablishment of an autonomous status for Oshetia. Right. And there's no real evidence that Shakisvili was huge about that. But it was something. It was a possible roadway to peace. A good gesture at the very least.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it could have worked. Maybe not. So the Russians got involved. Well, of course they fucking did. Entered the so-called meeting of four. Of four hand-picked Russian agents.

Or people knew that Russia could rely on. To make sure this little deal did not happen. And one of which was a professional wrestler. I should point out. What the fuck? Is that important? No, but it's funny. And they were brought together to make sure Shabirov did not win re-election, which would kill the deal with Georgia.

After some election fuckery, their plan worked and the professional wrestler became president. That's fun. It was kind of funny while the nation state burns. fun. It was kind of funny while the nation state burns. Then under President Stokehold Steve Austin, he requested Russia to recognize the independence of South Oshetia officially and absorb them

into the Russian Federation. That sounds familiar. It should. Crimea did the same fucking thing. Right. Now, Russia responded by giving out... For freedom. Yeah. Russia responded by giving out Russian passports to people long for freedom. Yeah. Russia responded by giving out Russian passports to the people of Oshetia,

effectively making them second Russian citizens. While also recognizing Oshetian independence, it's a very weird concept. Russia does this a lot. Now, if this wasn't enough, the Oshetian president flew to Abkhazia and sent a military union that promised Russian

support to help them as well. Meanwhile, in Oshetia, with their professional wrestler as president, almost all government minister positions were replaced with whoever had them before, two Russian advisors. For instance, the head of the Russian FSB in the Federative Republic of Mordovia

became head of the Oshetian KGB. It's not a promotion. It's just a side thing. It's a lateral transfer. Yeah, yeah. Now, soon Russian officers would end up in charge of every aspect of the Oshetian military

to include all the way down to platoon level leadership. So it's like full on puppet status at this point. And I have to say, this is completely independent of the Osh this point uh and i have to say this is completely independent of the oshadian people like this they have no say in this matter right um the russians also rigged the abkhazian elections so hard that when their chosen guy lost they banned all abkhaz imports which was effectively christ yeah that's the equivalent of just switching off their economy. That's brutal, dude. Yeah. Now, eventually, of course... What a dick move. The guy who did win, fully realizing what happened,

realized what was going on, and entered into a power-sharing deal with the guy that Russia wanted in charge. So they would allow exports again. Yeah, yeah. Now, at this point, Russia was pouring in so much money into the two states, it equaled 200% of the entire GDP of the states, which has to be some kind of record. That is a lot of money to spend. Wow.

Just like this, guys, please just give me one more chance. At this point, these places are very small, have very small populations. You almost have to run out of stuff to give money to at this point like these places are very small have very small populations um you almost have to run out of stuff to give money to at that point oh this is just a big jar we label bribes because like they're not building infrastructure i mean they are building like roads and stuff

but they're specifically like like military roads it's like that uh road that um russia built into sochi for the olympics that was the equivalent of paving it with like versace bags or something like that um no so but the by the time that the rose revolution uh succeeded in georgia with shakasvili becoming president russia had pretty much made war the only way any of this is going to end. Right. And this is only 2003. Oh, jeez.

By 2004, it seemed like Russia was actively goading Georgia into war. Mysterious explosions started happening at Georgian power plants, and a bomb exploded at a police station in the town of Gori, killing three people. Another explosion cut off oil and gas pipeline that seemingly, strangely, only supplied Georgia

in the middle of the winter that's funny how that works now independent investigations tracked us back to the russian gru the military intelligence uh i was worried there for a second yeah worried it might be some third party uh now it's it's it's clear when something did pop off russia did not want to be seen as the aggressor they wanted to look like some kind of coming to the aid of a besieged ally or something of that. Right. They wanted Georgia to take the bait. They were daring them to do so.

But they didn't. Yet. We'll get there. By 2006, the Russians had poured so many arms, people, machines, whatever, into Abkhazia and South Oshetia that it eclipsed the total military capacity of the Republic of Georgia, despite the fact of the two states having a total population of 250,000 people.

Jesus Christ. Georgia's was 4 million. All this, all these weapons, training, advising, whatever you want to call it, came at absolutely no cost to them. Russia's nice like that. Russia also started what amounted to be a total embargo

of Georgia, somewhat unofficially. Less cool. And began the state sanctioned harassment of ethnic Georgians living within the Russian Federation. Waves of state inspectors were sent to Georgian-owned businesses looking for a reason to shut them down,

and cab drivers were encouraged to refuse service to anybody with a Georgian surname. Yeah. Even also, like, looking kind of Georgian, which I have to say, that could be a lot of us. Like, that could be a lot of us. We all look a lot alike in the region. By 2006, neither side was backing down with russia demanding the recognize the recognition of the state of statehood for the two breakaway states and georgia of course not accepting that as an

option with the added effect of the president of president chakas feely saying georgia would join nato by 2009 because at this point could you hardly blame them like who else is gonna look up well obviously nato does not in fact look out for georgia but nobody else is looking out for them they at least thought that nato would those poor bastards yeah they don't have any other options at them there's no like third way here that's like you're either with russia or you're in nato because like during the nine aligned movement isn't a fucking option here um of course immediately after this announcement russian helicopters attacked georgian government buildings near the border something they immediately denied doing despite it clearly being russian military helicopters

just take the credit at some point just be like yeah what are you gonna do about it it's just like when the georgians shot down a plane during the first war that said property of Russia had a Russian pilot in it. Russian military instructions like now it's Georgian, bro. Georgia reacted to this in its parliament by voting in favor of NATO membership in a landslide. After that, a Georgian cop car was ambushed near the Oshetian border and two people were killed. By 2007, there's obviously war plans in the works. This is no longer a

vague concept for Russia. After years of bitching and moaning, the Russians suddenly withdrew their forces from various Georgian military bases, something they previously said would take them 11 years, and they did it in less than five months. They moved all those people to Oshedia by the way ah because of course they did yeah it was just then russia did what honestly i don't know if i've ever seen anybody do before and that is hold a

full-scale dress rehearsal for the coming war by early 2008 russia stopped even trying to hide what their intentions were. In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin went on TV while in Dagestan, and while discussing the construction of a nearby road, he asked, quote, where does this road lead? To which the host said, to Georgia.

And Putin answered, good. We need to accelerate its construction. We need one more corridor to there. Remember, there was virtually unannounced blockade of anything Russian going into Georgia at the time. There's only one reason why Russia would need that road. Now, none of this really mattered. In case anybody is

unaware of NATO bylaws, and really, why would you be? Please don't be that big of a nerd. There's a small detail in the rules of nato admission right nobody can join if it has an active and unresolved border conflict or dispute no so georgia can never have joined nato it was never gonna happen um now the obvious reason for that is if they allow people into nato with border conflicts you will eventually drag nato into war right which nato tries really

hard not to do when it's important um that meant in effect simply keeping things the status quo as they always have been for the well at least since the mid 90s russia had won georgia was never going to join nato it would have been impossible nato has never once um like waived this they never will as maybe if it was a border conflict between uh two very small countries that the rest of nato didn't care about they would let one in because the other one isn't going to want to fight nato but right this is russia nato isn't going to purposefully uh wave this clause knowing it will absolutely lead them into conflict with russia right that's just fucking stupid there there was no fucking way that georgia was ever going to be allowed nato and it's 2021 at the time of recording it'll probably be 2022 when this comes

out georgia's still not nato for a reason um it was never going to happen and nato didn't make this a secret they openly talked about it. Like, while Georgia was voting to join NATO, NATO was like, okay, well, here's the process that you need to take in order to join NATO. And one of those things was resolve the fucking border conflict. Which, good luck to you. Yeah, good luck. It still hasn't happened.

Now, because of this, there is one other possibility. and that is in order to break free of Russia and join NATO with that protective umbrella, Georgia would have eventually agreed to a more Russia stilted deal. Right. Maybe. There's no real pie in the sky. There was no real ideas in the Georgian government at the time that made them think they could resolve this militarily. They understood that they were at a disadvantage at this point. Just a little.

Just a small one. Not to mention, Chakasvili was not a very good president. As we will go into a little bit more detail how this war starts, he didn't exactly have the diplomatic abilities to fight his way out of a paper bag and this is like the only way he could have solved this in my opinion would have been

allow shedia to have autonomous status within georgia solve that problem and then give up kazio away because it just kept telling the fuck off like that's it that's that's how you fix that and then you can join nato that's like you know with that's not gonna happen yeah of course not no it would be incredibly unpopular um it would be i'm trying to think of a of a it would be as unpopular as if like in modern day ukraine if in order to resolve the crisis ukraine just like okay those places exist now war's over it would have been suicide for the government right you can't just give up huge swaths of territory and your people not be mad at you um especially when it's you know this is um from from uh like a republican identification

standpoint this conflict is almost a foundation of their government and modern state. Because as soon as Georgia broke away from the USSR, this war started. So it's as old as the Republic is. It's not going to be given up easily. I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing. It's just the way it is.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that Georgia was never going to join NATO it's not gonna fucking happen man now the one thing that Shaka's Valley's government really tried to do was rely on charm

offensives and they were bad pretty much just showing Oshetians and Abkhazians how good their life could be if they rejoined Georgia which was doing better at the time, but that's it. It's pretty much all they tried. Of course, then that really

mattered because the head of the Russian military staff as well as Sergei Lavrov both stated they would do everything in their power to stop Georgia from joining NATO. So, yeah. That means the status of these two regions wasn't actually important, and they were just using it to keep Georgia in a state of limbo.

That's good. That works. Russia didn't give a single fuck about either two of these states or their people. Now, all Georgia attempts... Shut the fuck up. No, you don't. Ugh, fine.

I'm so amped up. That's all I got. Hell yeah. You don't. Fine. That's all I got. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. All Georgian attempts to reach out were functionally pointless. This further underlined by the fact that Russian jets shot down a Georgian drone over Georgian airspace. Something, again, Russia denied. Now, this is kind of impossible to deny, as all of the other incidents, because the drone managed to record the approach of the jet, which was Russian before it was shot down. And you can actually watch this on YouTube.

It's kind of neat. I think this is the first footage of we have a drone of getting shot down ever. That's unique. Yeah. And I've watched it. It doesn't look like you would imagine. You could see the rocket coming. And you're like, and it moves a lot slower than drones footage than you'd imagine. You could see the rocket coming. And it moves a lot slower in that drone's

footage than you'd imagine. That's a mindfuck. Yeah, it really is. Since this is obviously an act of aggression, some would say an act of war, you know, shooting down a military asset over the airspace of that country. And it was finally recognized as

one by the noted useful institution, the United Nations. Thanks, boys. Yeah, you know what they did? Nothing. Yeah, we will write you an angry letter telling you how upset we are at this. It's the

UN. They did nothing. They'll never do it again. Promise. Pinky swear. They vetoed the pinky swear oh swears he real z's somebody voted present on the angry letter fuck uh i have to say uh like as much as we shit on the un i will say that's the only institution that is um that that the student version of makes look better oh like student UNs function much better than the actual UN. Even if it's literally just children screaming at one another.

Because I mean, that's really just all the UN is too. Now you can argue probably effectively that this is actually when the war started in July of 2008. And I would agree with that. This is, I guess you would call this the phony war part of it. Kind of like in July of 2008. And I would agree with that. This is, I guess you would call this the, the phony war part of it. Kind of like in world war two. Right.

Where both States notion, no shit's popping off, but neither is like fully stepped into it. Okay. As a retired Russian general went on record saying that Putin and greenlit the invasion of Georgia in order to do a regime change, kick out shock isasvili, though we don't know who his replacement

was. I doubt Shevardnadze would have been it. And this happened a full two months before in May of 2008. So, starting in July, it makes sense. Now, there's also another reason why Putin would say this in May. He wanted to make sure that the military knew

what he wanted to do before he was to step down and make room for Dmitry Medvedev, who was going to be president or at least pretend to be president for a few years while Putin screwed around the whole Russian constitution thing. So he could become president a couple years later. I can't remember that. Yeah, everybody remember that one time where a guy named Dmitry was in charge for some reason? It was that. remember that one time where a guy named Dimitri was in charge for some reason? It was that. Russia sent more and more soldiers

to the two breakaway states, setting up illegal roadblocks while the military put out a full nationwide call to former retired military helicopter pilots who specifically had experience flying in the Caucasus to return to service. Meanwhile, the

Russian railroad troops, a branch which actually does exist we're deployed we were deployed to the area to fix and update the abkhazian rail system make it usable for heavy freight like tanks and artillery oh i was gonna ask what possible heavy freight could they possibly oh they just came out and said it that's like one of my my favorite things about the russian military is that if there's a branch of it a railroad branch exists like i don't know why. Trains are cool, Joe.

And that's not just the military. That's like they have railroad cops. They have a railroad prison service. We have railroad cops. I mean, aren't they just like BNSAF, like private cops? Yeah, but they can arrest you. You never want to be arrested by railroad cops. That sounds like

getting arrested by a Pinkerton, but worse. Yeah. We also have railroad retirement as an alternative to social security. What the fuck? Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So like railroad workers have their own specific.

Yes. If you work on the line. Yeah. And it is more generous than actual social security. Well, that's not saying much. Yeah, I know. I generous than actual Social Security. Well, that's not saying much. Yeah, I know. I'm just letting it out. My mom recently qualified for Social Security through disability.

And she was waiting for it, expecting to be a livable amount of money. You're poor, Mom. And I think they gave her like $500. Okay. Like a month. You can make that certain. Yeah.

Thanks, assholes. $500? Okay. Like a month. I'm not worried about that. Thanks, assholes. Yeah, good thing we've been paying into this. She's been paying into this for, what, 50 years? Yeah. Now, if that wasn't obvious enough, on the last day of the month, Russian soldiers, along with FSB troops

and members of the both Abkhaz and Oshetian militaries, started a massive training exercise. This is that dress rehearsal I talked about. Soldiers of the Russian 58th Army were given detailed training instructions and pamphlets that said, quote, In the future, operation to force Georgia to peace, along with a detailed plan of what they were going to do. Well, at least they're being honest about it now. And soldiers were also given handouts that read, quote, soldier, know your enemy, and listed random facts about common Georgian soldiers,

like their armament, leadership structure, and language, and things like that. It's just, it's for their, just so they know, Joe. I have to say, even the US doesn't do this. Everybody makes jokes about our large-scale training exercises in California and Louisiana and stuff. But we make up countries to invade. So we don't do this. It's coming.

It's been coming for 20 years. The country that everybody invades, quote uh when they go to ntc is a tropia like we we make sure we don't name them after real places right russia's like no fuck it bro it's georgia it's georgia yeah so it's right there on the box and now one news agency the kavkaz center which i have a mixed relationship with professionally, because it's generally linked to Chechen separatism. Yeah. I don't mean that they're bad, necessarily. They just happen to be linked to Chechen separatism.

Yeah. Like, deal with that information, which you will. It's just hard to find unbiased information from them. Now, they took a stab in the dark. Because of theatism mostly uh and not to mention chechen separatism is a wild um like matryoshka of a fucking idea right like yeah it doesn't shock right it's uh like there's legitimate nationalists who wanted chechen states and then it's their causes been hijacked by by some insane militantism which also is deeply rooted in Russian

intelligence nightmare situations. The FSB has been fucking with Chechens for decades. Now the Kavkaz Center took a stab in the dark and said that Russia was probably going to invade in the first week of August which ended up being 100% accurate. Was it like a leak or just happened to be accurate? was probably going to invade in the first week of august which ended up being 100 accurate um

like a week or just happened to be accurate now that's the thing nobody's really sure but the the common idea of how they managed to come up with that information is because of their connection with chechen separatism which means they inherently have connections with russian intelligence right so yeah cool yeah um now while noted russian insane person neo-nazi and part-time politician alexander dugan what a fucking sentence said that all patriotic russians should travel to and take up arms it also sounds familiar um now at the end of the training exercise yeah now at the end of this training exercise some russian soldiers did go home about a couple thousand uh give or take but the rest stayed there uh on the side of the georgian border in case that also sounds familiar

just get stuff happen yeah just yeah just in case this sounds familiar i'm not pointing any fingers or anything it's good but i don't make money. No. Yeah. On August 1st, another Georgian police truck was blown up this time by an improvised explosive device or IED. Well, Oshetian artillery shelled Georgian villages just over the border. And that would continue throughout the war. There's a lot of,

uh, indiscriminate shelling going on in this conflict. I fucking love it. Yeah. Now Georgia did respond, uh, with artillery as well though they said that they're trying to do counter battery missions which is you know blow up their

artillery so they can stop hitting us they weren't very good at it that's all like they didn't back it out that's tough yeah as if it couldn't be more obvious what was coming russian journalists were loaded into a plane in moscow and flowedkosh. That just feels rude, dude. To report on the war. Now, this war, remember, had not technically begun yet. All foreign journalists with the exception of one being from the Crimea area of

Ukraine was allowed, where all other foreign journalists were banned. Only the one Ukrainian guy was allowed in. It's just nice to be included. Yeah. Yeah. Also.

Yeah. It's being so obvious. They know it's a lot like every other conflict that's boiling up that, you know, is coming. It's like the, the bigger power is just not even trying to hide anymore. Cause it's become very,

very clear that nobody's going to stop them like oh I can stop playing at this shit all I want now that same day small arms fire erupted over the border though nobody's entirely sure of who started it I will make my assumptions based on everything else I read in this conflict but you do you

by the next week August 7th a full 20,000 Oshetian civilians were evacuated into Russia a full 20,000 Oshetian civilians were evacuated into Russia. I believe in a North Oshetia, which constituted more than 40% of the entire population. Fuck.

Okay. And the vast majority of which being from the capital, which only had a population of over 30,000. So this place is almost empty now. Like they've set the stage where like a war could start

and there's not going to be that much collateral damage civilian casualties right which i will say you don't have to hand it to russia but that's a good fucking call yeah thanks guys if only they did that say in grozny you know um or you know syria

or ukraine or wherever else or no you take what you can get. Yeah, yeah. Now, at this point after the evacuation, the Russian government also began sending volunteers into the area, including, what else, but hundreds of Cossacks.

Ugh. Someone must have just told them that there was like, I don't know, like a temple in the area. Someone told the Cossacks that, you know, that there's Jews living north and south of Shady Inn. They're like, I don't know, like a temple in the area. Someone told the Cossacks that, you know, that there's Jews living north and south of Sharia. They're like, run away! Say no more!

If that joke is a swing and a miss on a lot of people, I encourage you to go listen to the Bloody Barren series. Or history books about Cossacks. Now, Russia, of course, would say much later, like they would in other conflicts, that they simply cannot control the actions

of random citizens if they want to go volunteer in some war. Is this a little green men shit? Yes, 100% is. About almost a decade before that happens, yeah. Okay, yeah. Now, they said that these volunteers are simply private Russian citizens. Many of whom happen to be reservists who are going out on their own private

business and they just want to go do a war. Now these volunteers were all well organized and gathered at the same drafting stations that regional military districts is the Russian military used for the same purpose. After that, these volunteers are loaded up and labeled as part of the official Russian peacekeeping units already in the area and transported aboard official Russian military vehicles into Oshetia.

So yeah, all the tears folks. They paid to get there. I don't even think they did that. I was, I was pulling for you. Republic of Russia, Republic sort of that. I was pulling for you, Republic of Russia. Republic, sort of in quotes.

I believe they're more of a federation. Yeah, there we go. There's a lot of republics within, but do what you will. We're just here for the snark. We're just here to make people mad, folks. While Georgia may have been horribly unprepared for this turn of events. It's not like they didn't see it happening. Well,

I would hope they saw it coming. Jesus Christ. They did see some of it coming. I don't think they realize how deeply fucked they were. Oh yeah. All right. President shock is volley. Tried to talk to anybody involved in the Russian government,

trying to figure out like, yo, what the fuck is going on? His calls pretty much went unanswered. And so instead he reached out to NATO who used their satellites. They get your calls going unanswered. Well, NATO did help.

They used their satellites like, yeah, there's a fuckload of Russians over there. That's probably not good. Oh, you said get off our ass and do something. Oh satellites yeah they they did just on the other side of nothing um another drone strike uh there's there's something of a narrative that's since the war ended that georgia has started it um and to be clear here i don't have a lot of nice things to say about the georgian government i think we've made our opinions in Chakrasvili pretty obvious.

Yeah. I hope so. He's about as corrupt as Chevronadze was and has gone into exile significantly more times. That's how you know he's the most corrupt. Yeah. But I have a hard time accepting the narrative that Georgia started this war. Now, they did. Why would you?

Right. I will say they did the first ground offensive, but the war has already started. I consider the war started as of July 2008. Right. Now, for starters, the Georgian military was in no goddamn place to start a war with fucking anyone, let alone Russia. Their years of military reform via U.S. help really only boiled down to a couple thousand people. Those soldiers were trained solely to go to Iraq as part of part of the georgian mission there they were not this was not a systemic reform since like their military remained largely unchanged since the end of the first war

they may have some fancy new tools now because of you know u.s money but functionally the same furthermore those thousands of soldiers were literally not in georgia at the time the nation's best soldiers arguably were thousands of miles away in baghdad so yeah if you were to start a war and you know if you were to start a war and you had an army of maybe 10,000 wouldn't you maybe bring 2,000 i'd have best guys. I wouldn't need them in fucking Vantaa. Maybe even if you were going to not have your best

guys, you'd at least make sure you have all of them. Right? Like 2000 out of 10 is a lot. Also, before everything kicked off, they never called up a general mobilization for reserves, which Oshetia and Abkhazia already did.

Right. They hadn't even moved their air defense up to cover the area that would eventually become a battlefield. No preparation had been made whatsoever. Their soldiers had been deployed forward to normal patrolling duties near the border,

but that's it nothing out of the ordinary they didn't even have radios oh jesus christ instead they were uh to communicate their personal cell phones uh which is never how you want to fight a war right uh another small detail is that the georgia military had never done a single force on force military training exercise simulating the war that was about to happen. Russia did. That's just black and white. Yeah, said it right there in the leaflets.

The commanders of their entire army had not done a single training exercise, so they had to command more than a thousand troops at a single time. And that was a joint exercise with American mentors acting as their staff officers. Basically, yeah.

Yep. That's right. There had been no... That was me, Joe Kasabian. No, that was not my job. That was you, Joe Kasabian. A corporal of the U.S. Army does not, in fact, advise staff officers. Yes, it does.

Let me have my jokes, Joe. The same American mentors charged with training the Georgians said their soldiers were, quote, beginning to walk, but by no means were they running uh now that's you know the crawl walk run concept of training this is a u.s army captain jeff barda no i don't know him who helped train a georgian brigade for their peacekeeping service in iraq quote if that was a u.s, it would not have gone to combat. I will second that one, however. It was also noted that many of the lower-ranking Georgian leaders,

like junior leaders and CO types, couldn't read very well. Read English or read Georgian? Read Georgian. Oh, no. This is something to do with the concept of conscription being more of an IQ test in some places. Right. Well-connected, well-educated people didn't go in the army.

Right. Not because that they didn't have to. They just found a way out of it. And this is not knocking the poor guys who didn't know how to read. Like, that's not your fault. Right. Like, that just sucks that you end up in a position where you had to. You don't know how to read. That's not your fault. Right. That just sucks that you end up in a position where you had to.

You don't know how to read. Yeah. You could probably be an infantryman in most armies and not know how to read, but you probably can't be an NCO because you couldn't read a map, for instance. You can't read printed orders. It's a problem.

Now, by the 7th of August, Georgia had finally started reinforcing its positions around those two states. But even then, it was only about 800 people. At this point, the combined Russian and allied forces of the two states, I guess we could call, was in the tens of thousands. Oh, geez. The same day. What a dick move, dude.

Yeah, a lot happened on the 7th. Thousands of Russian soldiers passed through the Roky Tunnel, the main thoroughfare between North Oshetia and South Oshetia. When Georgia received this report, they forwarded it to NATO to confirm it, which NATO did. Thanks, guys. At 11.30 p.m. the same day, Shaka's Vili ordered Georgian soldiers to advance into Oshetia and occupy the capital. In what has to be one of the dumbest military orders of the millennium. Yeah, that's rough. Now, the stated

goals were to stop Bushidian forces from shelling Georgian villages, which they were still doing, as well as occupy the capital before the Russians got to the capital. Not knowing, of course, that the Russians had already been there for weeks. This new force from the Roki Tunnel was just a bigger one.

It is generally assumed that Georgia had no idea how thoroughly Russia had hot couched their way into Osheti at this point. Thank you for using that as a verb. I have to assume they had no idea. Otherwise, they fully went

to war knowing it was suicide. Which is just more... I have a general rule on this podcast and in most military history and that is never attribute anything to malice that can be much more easily explained through incompetence

and this is screams of incompetence I don't know of any military leader outside of like World War I era that actually murdered their own soldiers out of malice um Mussolini comes to mind in the in the Greco-Italian war of like saying like freezing

to death in the mountains will make the men make the men right um but usually uh you know the cases of um of like Luigi Cadorna legitimately not giving a shit like this is 2008. Uh,

yeah, I, I highly doubt shock is Vili would order Georgia to war. Um, while knowing that he was already outnumbered, like three to one, uh, probably would have probably would have brought to the,

like the UN security council or something, uh, which would have gone nowhere since Russia is on the UN security council and has a veto, but like, of the more the shot so to speak yeah there there would have been a whole lot more of backpedaling and frantically realizing you're about to get fucked by an entire airborne division or whatever i guess what i'm trying to say is nobody can figure out what the fuck shakashvili was thinking so it thinking suicide march let's do it and uh he has written

about it um he's talked about it since then he's still alive he's actually i think he's back running in politics in georgia now um but his his explanations have been bullshit they've like been uh one way and then he tells it a different way gotcha yeah at some point you got you know what i mean he fucked up and just doesn't want to admit it right right they hadn't been promised any assistance from any other nation on the flip side this like current conflicts world powers openly told georgia they would not be giving them any military assistance in the reclaiming of the lands by force so they knew fully going to this, their armies outnumbered, outgunned, and unprepared, and launched

the attack anyway. Sfingvali, the capital of Oshetia, isn't even strategically important as Georgia controlled the high ground that overlooked the city itself. So completely unnecessary. Literally no reason for this. I mean, in some

pie-in-the-sky shit, I guess, if they truly believed they could go through and take out the Oshetian no reason for this yeah cool i mean i'd love to see it in some pie in the sky shit i guess like if they truly believe they could go through and and and take out the o'shedian artillery but even then they would require some like i don't like some serious yes man shit yeah um luck yeah luck catch the o'shedians all simultaneously sleeping they're all napping let's do this uh even if they saw no other choice to launch a preemptive invasion before russia did the Catch the Oshetians all simultaneously sleeping. They're all napping. Let's do this. Even if they saw no other choice to launch a preemptive invasion before Russia did the same thing to them, there is no possible way they were going to ever win this battle. Right. One of the possible reasons for this is not a single member of the Georgian government at the time had any military experience to include the Minister of Defense.

And they were just throwing shit to the wall to see what stuck. And ministry of defense equally inexperienced and unprepared unprepared simply went along with it um say unprepared unprepared uh it really seemed like when shaka's volley took power he surrounded himself with people that yeah for the most part loyalists that didn't want to say no on the 8th war officially started as Georgia returned the favor by bombarding the Oshadian capital with artillery while Russian jets entered Georgia in airspace once again they bombed targets

around Tbilisi then something new happened Russia launched a massive cyber attack on Georgia and what is probably the most effective and first use of electronic warfare in nation on nation warfare? The states like knocking out the power grid, shit like that.

I assume this state's footprint. And by that, by the state, I mean the Republic of Georgia's ability to use the internet was just annihilated. Oh shit, dude. Now this made disseminating information virtually impossible this forced them to use unsecured networks like fucking mobile hot spots and personal emails and

cell phones to send government fucking information about a war uh now russia of course knew this was going to happen because they had just annihilated their encryption technology so they had other technology waiting for them to intercept this, meaning at no point was any Georgian military force moving without Russian forces knowing about it. That's honestly terrifying. Yep. And this is, remember,

2008. This can very effectively happen now, even better. Right. Yep. Georgian technology is awesome. Isn't it great um now this also made georgian media largely unable to communicate with the outside world meaning russian media and free access not only free accent access but the main reporting method which all western media would then pick up and spread further within Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure. Within about 24 hours, Russian

media, via their own government, controlled the entire narrative of the war, which is probably one of the most effective ways I've seen this happen since, like, the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Right. This is why when Russia claimed that the Georgian attack on the Oshetian capital killed 2,000 civilians and displaced

40,000, the press just ran with it. Now, this wasn't just Western press because they did, but Russian press as well. So soon, amongst the Oshetian forces, they believed that thousands of people in the city had just been killed by the Georgians.

Right. That will lead to way more war crimes. That makes sense. That's pretty fucking heinous. Here's the thing, though. The vast majority of people killed in the attack on the capital were Georgian soldiers themselves. Oh, boy. While it's true that Georgia

bombed the shit out of the city, the vast majority of it had been evacuated with schools. That's 40% of the total Oshetian population. Oh, fuck. Okay. Yeah. Which included the vast majority of the total oshedian population oh fuck okay yeah which included the vast majority of the capital right um now since they've been evacuated things like schools hospitals government buildings and churches all things you're not supposed to target under you know geneva

conventions what have you were turned into military outposts which makes them free game now this is not according to any like pro-Georgian source or whatever this is a human rights watch so yeah that's how for people in a way that's how the law of land warfare works things are considered off limits

unless they're turned into military targets so like obviously you can't bomb a church you can't bomb a hospital but if you turn that hospital into a military command and control point it's free game now it's not a war crime um and according to human rights watch that's pretty much what happened right and if that wasn't bad enough a ton of russian artillery also bombed the city because of course it did um now well russian media said that at like 2 000 people were killed, it's very hard to come up with an accurate count here.

But the lone doctor who stayed in the local hospital during the fighting said that he saw 44 civilian casualties come into his hospital. And, you know, maybe 100 more wounded, give or take. The number could still fluctuate. It's certainly not 2,000. the number could still fluctuate it's certainly not 2000 um the russian 58th army launched a counterattack forcing the few georgian soldiers who had reached the oshadian capital out

hilariously the russians ran to the same problem the georgians did as soon as the war started their communication system bogged down and then broke entirely which forced them to use just russian conscripts desperately sending smoke signals in the mountains.

They also had to use cell phones to direct the invasion of a country. At one point, a Russian general cell phone wouldn't work, so he had to steal a satellite phone from a journalist to command his regiment.

Is that the ringtone? What was the ringtone, Joe? I think we have it. I want to say, uh, was it Angry Frog? Oh, I was going for the Russian Heartbates, and you've now wrote it. I'm just here to make you mad. Ah, this is about my own

batard. Now, the Georgians managed to hold on to the scraps of the southern edges of the Ossetian capital for 15 hours before they were just forced out by the weight of the Russian military, and they hold on to the scraps of the southern edges of the Oshadian capital for 15 hours before they were just forced out by the weight of the Russian military and they retreated to the town of Gori. But that same weight of Russian force actually

slowed the Russians down. There was only one single road that led between north and south Oshadia and it created a dozen mile long tens of thousands of man deep traffic jam. And this is the part where I get to say it. And then it got worse because their vehicles begin to break down.

And they had to pee. And you know, the funny part is about military vehicles. None of them are fuel, like have like good fuel economy. So if you're stuck in traffic idling for hours, you run out of gas, which they also did. The Russian Air Force is also using avionics and targeting equipment that was like decades old.

Some people said it was from like the 80s, maybe 90s if you're lucky, but probably late 70s, 80s. Now that meant they couldn't bomb accurately unless it was daytime and the weather happened to be nice oh world war ii and let me and let me like bombing range of world war ii never mind and let me tell you if you want to see some bad weather go to the caucuses in august like it just is constantly overcast um also their air campaign was made further like just

an incomprehensive mess by the fact that their version of GPS which is a system that was glasnass did not cover Georgia for some reason why what it's never been fully explained otherwise other than the system just wasn't complete and then

there had been budget cuts and then what yeah and then obviously enough the US wasn't complete. There had been budget cuts. And then... What? Obviously enough, the US turned off the Russian access to their GPS system because of course they would.

You know who did have access to GPS? Georgians. The Israelis? I don't fucking know. Also, yeah. The Georgian military was given access to GPS as well as in-depth information from NATO air defense systems. Oh, good. We helped.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Now, it didn't really matter because... Let me just move on to the next part and explain why this didn't matter. Now, when it came to a failure of scouting, obviously, GlasNass doesn't work right um they so you could use drones russia had drones though they kind of sucked um but they could be used yeah they could be used for scouting um but the russian defense minister

refused to allow them to be used in the theater for fear that they could be shot down and given over to nato countries for intelligence purposes. Gotcha. So... Look who's walked them anyway. This fell all airborne scouting operations to a TU-22M3. Now, for those

who are not avionics nerds, such as either of us, this is a supersonic bomber from the 1970s. Hell um now bombers are not exactly great at scouting this is not a job i was equipped for and when when it was kind of equipped for it was very bad at it and then if things couldn't get any worse the t poor bastard force to fly these missions. The TU was then shot down by Russian ground forces.

That's good. According to the Georgians, the Russian lost 19 aircraft during the air campaign. I have no way to say that's true or false, but the Russians say it was more like six. I guess it was 19. This might be 19. And it was all on the first day of fighting.

However, the Russians also acknowledge in their own numbers of six, three were shot down by friendly fire. That is not great. Meaning a full 50% of them were complete and total fuck ups, even by their own admission. Now, this is because, like again, back in our first Chechen War series, the Russian Air Force still had not figured out a way for their jets to talk to the ground forces. So that meant nobody could, like, make sure who was friendly or who was foe. And the ground forces were never told that their air force was operating in the sky over them. Oh, that's

that's that good logistics leading to them to believe that every single jet over them was Georgian despite the fact that the Georgian air force did not fly a single fucking sortie throughout the entire war outstanding yeah Russia might be the first

country that we've ever talked about that lost air superiority to themselves, which is incredible. Georgia didn't have a lot going for what they did have was balls. Georgian special forces had managed to infiltrate all the way to the Roki tunnel and using GPS called in artillery of the confused mess of Russian vehicles that had gotten stuck in traffic. Nice. Oh, how of death. In another operation, that same special forces unit launched an ambush

and nearly killed the Russian general in charge of the ground invasion, General Anatoly Kurelev, the commander of the 58th Army. Exact details of this operation aren't known. I couldn't find shit on it, but it was described that the general was wounded in a quote hand-to-hand combat it's 2008 just run up and fucking slice the goddamn general get the fuck out my country now when the georgian government finally mobilized its reserves

had no idea what to do with them. The system had never been used before, and when people showed up, it was discovered that they actually never been given any military training at all. They'd just been put on the reserve roles. When they were deployed anyway to Gori, many of the units got lost. The regular army commanders in the town

had no idea where they were coming from or why. Yes, yes. And had no, like, more specifically, those regular army commanders did not get any orders from the government on what the fuck they were supposed to be doing. Let alone what they were supposed to be doing with all these random dudes with rifles. No training bed showed up. So the reserves kind of stood around for a couple hours before turning around and going home.

Fair enough. By the next day of fighting on the 9th, any hope of Georgia holding out any like overall offensive into Georgia was dead. The real nail in the coffin is when the Russians open a second front out of Abkhazia where so far there had been no fighting. In Abkhazia alone, the Abkhaz army led by Russians was larger than the entire

Georgian army. They were further reinforced by another 15,000 Russian soldiers. That means that now from two fronts, the 12,000 man Georgian military, 2,000 Russian soldiers. That means that now, from two fronts, the 12,000-man Georgian military, 2,000 of which were in Iraq, was now outnumbered on two fronts, which is probably the most fucked

a country has ever been. Probably knowing how screwed they were, the Georgian government declared a ceasefire, hoping this would lead to some kind of negotiations, but instead, Russia just ignored that and rolled towards the town of gory they seized the town of poti which was the headquarters of the small georgia

navy and then what has to be the the biggest fuck you like tactically and little else they literally loaded the entire georgia navy up on flatbeds and stole them oh and then sold them for scrap like come on man you kind of just sank them like like no Sold them. Oh. And then sold them for scrap. Scrap? Come on, man.

You could have just sank them. Like, no, we're going to steal this because fuck you. That's why. Suck a dick. And I mean, they're all very old ships. I don't even think they even attempted to resist. Now, they seized the town of Poti, like I said. And once there, they also seized a large shipment of U.S. Humvees,

which were being shipped in to be given to the Georgians. On the 11th, the Georgian forces began an all-fronts retreat. The government assumed this shit was for real now, and if they were going to defend anything, they needed to centralize everything they had to defend the capital of Tbilisi. This meant that tank formations, because they couldn't move fast enough, everything they had to defend the capital of Tbilisi. This meant that tank formations in order to,

uh, cause they couldn't move fast enough, hid themselves in the, uh, board Jomi national park. Uh, and when Russia heard about that, they simply firebombed the entire thing.

So that's, that's cool. Cool. Rather than risking losing more aircraft, I assume to themselves, Russian forces began firing ballistic missiles armed with cluster bomb warheads deep into Georgia. And since their targeting systems were totally fucked as their aircraft, these landed in residential areas.

And I do need to point out, Georgia also used cluster bombs. So everybody knows I'm not trying to obscure that. But yeah. Georgian forces, in the meantime, desperately tried to hold on to something, anything. No pre-war plans existed to defend their capital and no bunkers or shelters or anything prior had been built because this is fucking 2008 what country has

these maybe Switzerland right like no nobody's prepared for an actual invasion towards their capital that's not something that states prepare for anymore right because why would you yeah even into the dude yeah yeah nobody would we're in the enlightened part of history no pure war will pop up where the dumbest part

everybody i want to make that very clear i mean the only thing that we have over like the turn of the 19th century i guess is at least we're not all right yeah and we also wash our hands now. We got that going for us. We won't wear masks, though. Take some. You win some, you lose some. Yeah, you gotta take the good to bed.

Now, Georgian troops worked around the clock, rattled but not broken, to prepare their last stand against the allied forces of three armies of which they stood absolutely no chance against. And they dug in around this plateau area to give them like the best possible position to fight from and it would have been a fucking bloodbath from all

sides that would have ended in a Georgian defeat absolutely then thankfully the final short showdown at the gates of Tbilisi never happened on August 12th Russian President Medvedev announced that he had accepted a ceasefire plan that had been brokered by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, noted convicted criminal these days. The march on Tbilisi was canceled, but Russian forces acted as a screen as militia and volunteers they support began laying waste to the towns they now controlled, looting and murdering their way through ethnic Georgian villages.

now controlled looting and murdering their way through ethnic georgian villages for um it's sometimes explained as revenge uh for the 2 000 or so uh people that were reportedly killed that didn't actually die i mean like 2 000 people didn't even die in this entire conflict right they would eventually expel tens of thousands of civilians back towards the area held by the georgian government and to this day tens of of thousands of Georgians can still not return home. Large swaths of Georgia became occupied as a buffer zone. At the port of Poti, like I said, Russians found those U.S. Humvees, which they then also

carted back to Russia for research. Though I have to say, I have no idea what they could have learned from those fucking pieces of shit. I have a few dicks. I mean, there's a reason why we're giving them away. We don't give away things that are actually good to like third countries like even the tanks we give to saudi arabia are purposefully shitty they have different armor and guns steal it we don't give a fuck they suck i don't i mean they're humvees they've been around since

the fucking 80s there's no secrets about them. They weren't even armored. They were like the shitty canvas-sided Humvees that we wouldn't use anymore. Yeah. Now, this war is generally considered to have begun on August 1st and ended on the 12th. Though, like I said, I believe it really did begin in July. But it only began in earnest on the 8th of August. And in mostly five days, the Georgian military had been destroyed. It lost a quarter of its tanks and it literally, its entire navy had been scrapped.

Taken back on flatbeds. Yes. And Georgia just disbanded it. They never rebuilt it. I think they reformed it into a coast guard. Nobody really knows exactly Russian or allied casualties, I guess we can call them, because they fluctuate pretty wildly.

The Georgians lost less than 200 dead, they did have 1,200 wounded, which is pretty bad for an army that is functionally only around 10,000. It's bad. Russian veterans of the war were given the Four Enforcing Peace Medal, which is funny. Since

the war, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and syria has recognized the independence of the two states though i should be i should point out here banger list yeah that's a that's a all-time list but russia also literally paid them tens of millions of dollars a piece uh to get to get them to recognize they do this a lot like states do this a lot. You see the same kind of tit-for-tat pissing match between China and Taiwan, who can pay people to recognize them more with economic

deals and shit. Though there's a lot more politics involved in that one. Though in reality, these places are not independent states. They are functionally part of the Russian Federation. Both places are deeply impoverished and dependent on Russia for literally everything to include their continued funding and local economy. Since the end of the russian federation both places are deeply impoverished and dependent on russia for literally everything uh to include their continued funding in local economy since the end of the war russia has gone back to mostly ignoring them uh because of course they did their list of them is

used up um now meanwhile georgia refuses to acknowledge independence or russia's effective annexation of them something i'm sure will not possibly lead to future problems. That's a mindfuck. Yeah. And that's a podcast, folks. This one has a happy ending. No. Don't worry. Nothing ever gets better. Yeah.

And this certainly couldn't happen all over again with other regions exactly like this. No. No, it could never happen again. Now, we've been going over a little long, so we're going to go straight to our question from the Legion. If you'd like to ask us a question from the Legion, donate to the show, sign my DMs on Patreon, Discord, whatever. Donate a buck, ask a question,

we answer it on air. Firearms are now gone. You have to use a hand-to-hand weapon. What would yours be? I guess broadsword, duh. I'm going to go with unpopular opinion. Spear. Spear's a good one. Spear's a good one. I don't want you to get too close to me. I'm going to go with unpopular opinion. Spear. Spear's a good one.

I don't want you to get too close to me. I'm going to poke you from afar. Doesn't feel too good, does it? Stay back there, motherfucker. So that is our episode. Liam, plug your shows. Well, there's your problem. 10,000 losses. Yeah, listen to them. Buy my sci-fi series, Liberty

of Death. Check out Hooligans of Kandahar. You can get them for freakishly cheap or free. Donate to the Patreon. You make everything we do possible, and you get bonus stuff. And, I don't know, until next time, don't carpet bomb National Park. Don't salt

flatbed someone else's navy I honestly I'm kind of cool with that one it's funny at least scrap the navy later