Saturday, August 9, 2008

Georgian TV shows downed Russian pilots

Georgian TV has just shown footage of one dead Russian pilot and one wounded one. Georgian journalists were allowed inside the hospital where there Russian POW was treated and asked him what his mission had been. The Russian could barely speak, but he repeated twice "reconnaissance". Some Georgian sources claim that not two, but five Russian aircraft were shot down.

It could well be that the pilot was saying the truth as one of the downed aircraft is reportedly a SU-24 which does have a recon variant. If the downed pilot was from the SU-25 then he is not saying the truth (either because he fears for himself, or because he refuses to reveal his mission).

Note: showing POWs on TV and have reporters question them while they are barely able to speak because of their injuries is all a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention, but I guess is that this is not the kind of instruction the Georgians were getting from their American military advisors.