Exercises "Kavkaz-2009" can be a prologue to new Russia's war on Georgia, experts think

Today, the southwest region of Russia starts operative-strategic exercises "Kavkaz-2009", treated already by western media as a prologue to a new war against Georgia; Russian experts also tend to think so.

In the opinion of Andrei Illarionov, President of the Institute of Economic Analysis, the Russian-Georgian war can restart after July 6, when the exercises are over.

The exercises will take place from June 29 to July 6 in the territories of the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, Astrakhan, Volgograd and Rostov Regions and Republics of North Ossetia-Alania, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachaevo-Circassia and Chechnya. 8500 servicemen will take part, together with 200 tanks, 450 armoured vehicles and 250 artillery canons.

In the course of the exercises, their participants will train warfare actions on the basis of the experience obtained during the operation of forcing Georgia to peace in August 2008. Alexander Kolmakov, First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, has stated that "the exercises 'Kavkaz-2009' can be compared, by their scale and scope, with the exercises practiced in Soviet times," the ITAR-TASS reports.