Russia Keeping US Humvees as Plunder

A top Russian general says that Russia is keeping the four U.S. military Humvees captured in Russia’s invasion of the Republic of Georgia last year as “trophies.”

The Humvees were in the former Soviet nation last year as part of a joint training exercise.

European Union monitors are at the “boundaries” Georgia shares with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but they will surely prove to be as effective as the U.N.’s UNIFIL force has been at keeping Hezbollah at bay in Lebanon. Just as Hezbollah denies UNIFIL access to areas, Russia and Ossetian forces deny EU monitors access to South Ossetia in order to verify claims of Georgian attacks.

Over a year after the invasion, Russia still maintains a force of 1,000 troops in Abkhazia and 800 in South Ossetia. But as BBC reports, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Wednesday that the troop levels would increase by 1,500 in each territory. However, no one should worry as this is still less than half of the troops that Russia had deployed last year according to Karasin.

While Russia feels that their military occupation of Georgia is acceptable, they staunchly oppose any involvement by the U.S., such as humanitarian aid after the invasion and firefighting drills with the Navy and Coast Guard in July.

Obama’s diplomatic efforts in the Kremlin last month to respect Georgia’s territorial integrity appear to have failed.

To put the Russia’s Georgian invasion of a year ago into perspective, it would be like if Mexico sent their Army into the United States – raping and pillaging along the way as the Russians did – and drove the American military out of Southern California and Texas. Russia feels as though their former Soviet states – like Georgia – are still theirs, just as Mexico has their “reconquista.” There are ethnic Russians in Georgia, as there are ethnic Mexicans in the Southern U.S., but that in no way justifies a Mexican invasion.