The motorcade, carrying Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski, was passing a checkpoint near Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region - site of intense conflict between Russian and Georgian troops in August - when shots were fired Sunday, according to the Georgian Interior Ministry.

The motorcade was not hit and there were no injuries, the Georgian Interior Ministry said. No other shooting was reported in the area. The shots were fired from Russian-controlled territory as the motorcade passed, the ministry said.

Click here to read more

Michael T. Klare
Author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books)
Professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.

South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the Republic of Georgia – these war-torn areas may appear to be unimportant places in distant, unfamiliar locations, but they possess immense geopolitical significance in the growing struggle between the United States and Russia over the global transport of energy. It is for this reason that conflict has broken out in the region, and for this reason that the major powers are so concerned over the outcome.

Georgia and its breakaway provinces do not themselves contain any significant reserves of oil, but they are strategically important because of their role as an “energy corridor” between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The former Soviet republics that ring the Caspian possess large reserves of oil and gas, but the sea itself is landlocked and so any energy being shipped out of the area must travel on land, largely through pipelines.

Moscow would like to transport most of this oil and gas via pipelines that traverse Russia on their way to Europe, giving it control over the ultimate flow of these supplies – along with the economic benefits of being the middleman. But Washington is wary of allowing so much energy to come under Moscow’s control, and so has favored alternative routes that cross the Caucasus, bypassing Russia. Hence the strategic importance of Georgia.

Keep reading