President Medvedev Orders End to Military Operation in Georgia

Russia is ending its military operation in Georgia and has compelled Georgia to peace, Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev announced at a meeting with Russian defense minister and head of the Joint Staff.

However, Russia has remained highly critical of Georgia’s leadership, and there were no signs of imminent talks.

There were fresh reports of Russian bombing on Tuesday, with casualties reported in the Georgian town of Gori.

Sources: RIA Novosti (in Russian), BBC News

While Russians Have United in Sympathizing with Ossetians, the Media and the Opposition Worry that the Military May Overuse this Consensus

Besides military casualties, the main loss that Russia has incurred in the war in South Ossetia is the global public relations disaster it may be faced with due to Western media coverage. For many Russians, the wide-spread pro-Mikheil Saakashvili leanings of international media appear as a terrible injustice, since there is nearly ubiquitous consensus among Russians that the movement of Russian troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a response to the Georgian attack. Even opposition parties with good credentials in the West agree with this version of events.
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Russia Profile Website

Western Mass Media Outlets Are Too Quick to Condemn Russia’s Actions

While watching the mass media coverage of the events surrounding South Ossetia, one gets the sense that the concepts of “balance” and “objectivity” have been eliminated from contemporary journalism. Little is being done to verify the information supplied by the Georgian authorities, and while the Russian party is far from innocent, the media’s failure to ask the most basic questions and glaring discrepancies in its coverage make it even harder to dot the “I’s.”
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Russia Profile website

History May Still Produce Figures of Solzhenitsyn’s Scale

Most of the comments related to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s death have had an air of sorrow about them – a grief for the burial of the nation’s conscience, for the passing of an epoch of great people the last of whom has just departed. But Alexander Arkhangelsky argues that although Solzhenitsyn was indisputably a grand and powerful figure, he was just one of the few who have revealed themselves, while given the right circumstances, history will uncover many more.
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