"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity."

Back when James Bond got taken out of retirement in 1996's Goldeneye, he slyly said to his boss, M, that when it came to Russia: 'Governments change. The lies stay the same.'


Yesterday, the Russian government angrily refuted claims that tanks and soldiers were occupying the Georgian city of Gori. This morning, they admitted that the troops were there - and that they were sending even more of them in.

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the world - Russpeak for 'watch while we annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia like we'd intended to do from the very beginning.'

For years, the Russians have been funnelling funding and weapons to the two disputed provinces to stir up a separatist movement. Russians have handed out Russian passports to 90% of the population, preparing them for the inevitable. South Ossetia and Abkhazia will surrender autonomy for autocracy - and be swallowed up by their neighbour.

Accusations of war crimes and an angry refusal to speak with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili were the first steps of Russia's second objective - to topple the democratically elected and pro-western government of Georgia and replace it with one more sympathetic to their former Soviet masters.

Fortunately, America has stepped up to the plate. By sending humanitarian supplies into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi - soon to be joined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - they've given Russia a very clear message that the government's staying exactly as the voters wanted it.

Condoleezza declared: "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

But have they really changed that much?

With up to 100,000 Georgians ethnically cleansed from the disputed provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there's little to stop the Russians redrawing the map and enveloping the two regions into their own country. America and the United Nations certainly aren't in much of a position to stop them.

Nobody's quite sure how this will all end - but one thing is certain. The bleating of the pro-Russian apologists is getting increasingly less convincing as this diplomatic crisis continues.