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President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia has vowed to keep the Russian enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia firmly under Georgian control. In response, Russian Prime Minister Putin sent Russian military jets to violate Georgian airspace. Last week each side accused the other of armed provocation in South Ossetia. Last Friday Saakashvili ordered an offensive as intelligence reports claimed Russian forces were approaching the border. Russian forces drove out Georgian army units as Abkhazian separatists drove out Georgian army forces from the Black Sea enclave.

There is now a greater conflict looming sparked by NATO and European Union (EU) recognition of Kosovan independence from Serbia. Russia opposed this move; Serbia is Russia's client state. Russia pushed the argument that if Kosovans could be independent so too could Abkhazians and Ossetians. Russia is providing Russian passports for Abkhazians and Ossetians, thereby pledging to protect them from a pro-western Georgia. Russia has reacted to steady western encirclement. The Georgian army is being retrained by American military advisers. Thee are reports that Georgian army units serving in Iraq were transported by U.S. military helicopters to Ossetia. Russia fears the Ukraine and Georgia will join NATO.

Georgia's young President Saakhasvili was briefly a classmate of President George W Bush at Columbia and George Washington Universities. He was justice minister in the government of Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister who was Georgian president after the USSR collapsed. He turned against his mentor and succeeded him after the non-violent Rose Revolution in 2003. Saakashvili is vilified in Russia and is accused of autocratic tendencies after last year's crackdown on the opposition.

Saakhasvili knows his country is of vital importance to western Europe due to the Baku-Tbilsi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline which runs through central Georgia south of the breakaway region which is flanked by key Georgian military installations which were among te first targets attacked by Russian jets as the conflict erupted last week.

Georgia is believed to be the setting for Jason and the Argonauts mythological quest for the Golden Fleece. The western Caucasus mountains rise steeply from the Black Sea with well wooded slopes. Georgia is situated where the Christian west meets the Muslim east with the well watered west gradually meeting arid terrain in east Georgia. St George is the patron saint of Georgia with a red cross on a white background the national emblem.

Can the EU intervene? The EU have the negotiation credibility in this issue with Russia needing a market to th wast for its vast oil and gas reserves. This conflct will be resolved economically. Russia fears NATO encirclement

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