re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

I am fairly ignorant on the matter and I am pretty sure other in here are probably pretty well informed on what happened in Georgia, but I believe there are some key differences between Georgia and Ukraine. Didn’t Georgia kind of get baited into attacking Tskhinvali

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To add to the above, I don’t recall anywhere near the public & governmental show of support (emotions, not financial/equipment) for Georgia in 2008.

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ummm

From Wikipedia

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United States – US president George W. Bush said on late 11 August, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century." Bush also said, "There’s evidence that Russian forces may soon begin bombing the civilian airport in the capital city." Bush urged Russia to sign the EU-mediated ceasefire agreement, otherwise Russia would "jeopardise" its standing with the West.[314] Although the Bush administration contemplated a military reaction to defend Georgia, it decided against it so as to not provoke a conflict with Russia. Instead, the US sent humanitarian assistance to Georgia on military aircraft.[315]

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And once those air craft were in Georgia, they didn't take off effectively stopping the Russian advance for fear of getting the US involved:

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In August 2008, as Russian tanks advanced through Georgia’s sovereign territory and headed toward the capital, Tbilisi, President George W. Bush announced that he was mounting a U.S. military airlift to Georgia under the banner of “humanitarian assistance.” Those U.S. Air Force planes, once on the ground in Tbilisi, never took off again. If Vladimir Putin wanted to take Tbilisi, he was going to have to go through the United States. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Tbilisi to help secure a truce. This mix of military pressure and diplomacy worked. Putin halted his advance.

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Washington Post (sorry it's paywalled)

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I am fairly ignorant on the matter and I am pretty sure other in here are probably pretty well informed on what happened in Georgia, but I believe there are some key differences between Georgia and Ukraine. Didn’t Georgia kind of get baited into attacking Tskhinvali

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One key difference between these two conflicts is that each side had less that 200 military deaths for the duration of the conflict.

From Wikipedia (which I'm actively reading now):

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On 1 August 2008, the Russian-backed South Ossetian forces started shelling Georgian villages, with a sporadic response from Georgian peacekeepers in the area.[32][33][34][35][36] Intensifying artillery attacks by the South Ossetians broke a 1992 ceasefire agreement.[37][38][39][40] To put an end to these attacks, the Georgian army units were sent in to the South Ossetian conflict zone on 7 August.[41] Georgian troops took control of most of Tskhinvali, a separatist stronghold, in hours.

Some Russian troops had illicitly crossed the Russo-Georgian state border through the Roki Tunnel and advanced into the South Ossetian conflict zone by 7 August before the large-scale Georgian military response.[note 4][39][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] Russia accused Georgia of an "aggression against South Ossetia",[41] and launched a full-scale land, air and sea invasion of Georgia, including its undisputed territory, on 8 August, referring to it as a "peace enforcement" operation.[49] Russian and South Ossetian forces fought Georgian forces in and around South Ossetia for several days, until Georgian forces retreated. Russian and Abkhaz forces opened a second front by attacking the Kodori Gorge held by Georgia. Russian naval forces blockaded part of the Georgian Black Sea coastline. The Russian air force attacked targets both within and beyond the conflict zone. This was the first war in history in which cyber warfare coincided with military action. An information war was also waged during and after the conflict. Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, personally negotiated a ceasefire agreement on 12 August.

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This reads eerily similar to what Russia is claiming and hoping to do with Donbas/Crimea.

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This mix of military pressure and diplomacy worked. Putin halted his advance.

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Except later they started using borderization tactics to keep pushing out further and gained access to a Soviet built pipeline that passed through Georgia in the process.

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The process – erecting borders between Russian-occupied territories and Georgia proper – was called "borderization". The "borderization" process also involved a gradual advance of the occupation line inside Georgia by grabbing small chunks of Georgian-held terrain to enlarge the Russian-held territory, placing it nominally under South Ossetian administration

On 2 August 2009, Russian troops reportedly moved the South Ossetian boundary markers about 500 metres (0.3 mi) into the Georgian-controlled territory in the village of Kveshi. However, on 4 August the Russians removed the iron posts they had installed earlier in Kveshi. The demarcation of the South Ossetian boundary in Shida Kartli started in 2011 with the construction of a few fences in Ditsi and Dvani, but it was stopped after local negotiations

The process of border demarcation continued in February 2013. Russian troops started the installation of barbed wire barriers to separate the South Ossetian territory from the rest of Georgia.In some instances, the Georgian residents could not access their plots or come out of their homes because the border of barbed wire runs through or around their property…

In September 2013, it was suggested that the continuation of "borderization" would place 1,600 metres (1 mi) of Baku–Supsa oil pipeline beyond the occupation line.

In mid-April 2014, two portions of Baku-Supsa pipeline reportedly appeared on the Russian-controlled territories near the villages of Orchosani and Karapili. As of late July 2014, Russian forces were still constructing "security fence" across South Ossetia.

Green border signs claiming "state border" started to appear for the first time in 2015 along the imaginary administrative boundary line and since then have been moved further into Georgian territory on several occasions.

In July 2017, it was reported that Russia again moved its fences and border signs several hundred meters deeper into Georgian territory.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_territories_of_Georgia

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There’s billboards to support Ukraine in fricking South Carolina. None of that mess happened for Georgia or any other regional conflict that wasn’t started via civil war that I can recall. I still don’t recall it for Syria, but Syria got a lot of media coverage as well so certainly possible. Georgia did not which is the better comparison to this conflict than Syria.

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There's a few important contextual differences that I think may explain why there's a difference in attitude. For one, the US had two ongoing wars at that time. Enough problems of our own to worry about. Second, Ukraine has been in the US news for the last 8 years. Georgia was never in the news before the Russian invasion. There was a lack of familiarity with the country. Third, I don't think there was much of a build up to it, at least not in western media. With the invasion of Ukraine, we had the US government blitzing the media with intelligence, warning that an invasion was imminent. I don't think that happened with Georgia. Fourth, the war lasted less than 2 weeks and the scale was much, much smaller.

Ukraine as a whole is about 10 times the population of Georgia or Crimea, both of whom have a population smaller than Louisiana.

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There's a few important contextual differences that I think may explain why there's a difference in attitude. For one, the US had two ongoing wars at that time. Enough problems of our own to worry about. Second, Ukraine has been in the US news for the last 8 years. Georgia was never in the news before the Russian invasion. There was a lack of familiarity with the country. Third, I don't think there was much of a build up to it, at least not in western media. With the invasion of Ukraine, we had the US government blitzing the media with intelligence, warning that an invasion was imminent. I don't think that happened with Georgia. Fourth, the war lasted less than 2 weeks and the scale was much, much smaller.

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I would counter that with we still have our own domestic problems with the economy and inflation, as well as 6 straight years of severe political turmoil, really you could add Obama’s 8 years to that in the opposite direction as well. I’ll give you were not fighting the same two wars now so there’s less military conflict for our focus.

Your point about Ukraine being in the news for 8 years was one of my points as well. The media has been invested in both Russia as the boogeyman and Ukraine for years at this point.

We were still hyperfocused on Middle East terrorism at the time as well.

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A video posted online on Monday and verified by The Times appears to show Ukrainian soldiers killing captured Russian troops outside a village west of Kyiv on or around March 30, as the Russians were withdrawing. I'll thread some findings here:

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LInk to the article