Russia's Good Day To Bury Bad News

The Olympics began in China yesterday. And with the world's attention on Beijing, Russia took the opportunity to invade another country. Red Army tanks have rolled into Georgia's province of South Ossetia, which is mostly full of Russians who've long wanted to break away from Georgia. The timing of the assault was surely no accident.

Although South Ossetia's been a restless place since before the collapse of the Soviet Union, its demands to separate from Georgia slipped down the agenda a bit during the 90s. In those days Georgia was being run by the former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Schevardnadze. But since a revolution in 2003, Georgia's been led by a pro-western government, which has annoyed both Russia and those Russians living in South Ossetia. In recent times, Russian-backed rebels have gradually gained control of large parts of the province, and the Georgians have used their own military to try to put down that rebellion.

And it's against that backdrop that Russia has moved in. It says it's only sending in its military to support the rebels. But Georgian leaders have already called it an invasion, insisting they won't let South Ossetia break away in order to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Funnily enough, that's exactly the same reason the Russians have long given for their desperation to hang on to one of their own breakaway areas, Chechnya. That makes the Kremlin's position on South Ossetia very hypocritical. Just don't expect that to bother them.

It's An Emergency

Declaring a state of emergency is proving popular this week. First Pakistan, now we've got Georgia's President Saakashvili, who has used riot police against protestors demanding his resignation. He accuses Russia of being behind all the trouble, and of wanting to overthrow him because of his pro-western views.

Although relations between Russia and Georgia have rarely been good, they've steadily got worse since Mr Saakashvili was swept to power in a more-or-less bloodless revolution back in 2003. He wants to move Georgia out of Russia's clutches, and into the warm western embrace of the EU and NATO. President Putin, as well as those people who live in the provinces of Georgia next to Russia, don't fancy that much. So although it's tempting to imagine that Mr Saakashvili's conspiracy theories might be a bit over the top, there's probably plenty of truth in there.

If, and it's a pretty big if, Georgia's government does fall to be replaced by a Putin-friendly administration, then we'll all take a much closer interest in what's going on. Back in the mid-19th century, Russia and Britain competed for influence in central Asia in the famous Great Game. Events in Georgia hint at a re-run of sorts, for the 21st century.

Growing Pains

Rangoon's not the only city seeing anti-government protests this week. Thousand of people have marched in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, angry at the arrest of a senior minister who has accused President Saakashvili of plotting to kill a businessman. Meanwhile, Ukraine votes on Sunday in parliamentary elections called following yet another political crisis.

It wasn't meant to be like this. Not so long ago, Georgia and Ukraine were being hailed by western leaders, after street protests in both countries led to changes in governments. In both nations, pro-western and anti-Kremlin leaders were swept to power, with promises of new dawns and brighter futures. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it hasn't been that easy, and aside from the turmoil in Georgia, the split coalition that led Ukraine's Orange Revolution now faces a challenge from a resurgent old guard.

The main reason why new governments have struggled in Georgia and Ukraine is not their pro-western policies - although perhaps the people of both countries were allowed to foster unrealistic hopes of how quickly their lives might change for the better. Really it's down to a mixture of inexperience and infighting, problems that can affect any new administration in any country. But even if voters in either nation end up turning again to those who ran the show previously, they've both already come far enough for us to be sure the people don't want to turn the clock all the way back.