Tbilisi  - "Georgia would have to be crazy to go to war with Russia, and we are not crazy," President Mikheil Saakashvili told a reporter from Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a May interview.

Saakashvili's analysis - the first half of it at least - was certainly proven accurate by August's South Ossetia War. Russia's army demolished Georgia in a lightning campaign, as the biggest gamble of the Georgian leader's life came up a bust.

The South Ossetians and Georgians had fought once before, in 1991. By the summer of 2008, Saakashvili and the Kremlin were in open conflict over control of South Ossetia, a renegade Georgian province boasting de facto independence with its government defying Tbilisi's right even to set foot in the region.

Tbilisi/Kiev  - The Russo-Georgian War in August of this year demonstrated a basic truth about the Russian army: it is a sledgehammer, not a rapier, and a fairly effective sledgehammer at that.

The five-day conflict left few doubts that, when it came to high tech and training, Russia's fighting men are behind modern armed forces. Western experts routinely pointed out during the conflict how antiquated some parts of the Russian military are.

However, the well-orchestrated, lightning invasion also made clear that the Kremlin's soldiers are more than capable of using ingenuity and overwhelming numbers to crush an opponent like the Georgian military.

Tbilisi/Moscow  - Unarmed observers of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were fired at in the buffer zone near the breakaway republic of South Ossetia on Wednesday, Georgian television reported.

The television channel Rustavi-2 showed images of an off-road vehicle belonging to the OSCE with several bullet holes in the side.

A spokeswoman for the OSCE confirmed the incident which she said took place near the city of Gori. Nobody was wounded.

Tbilisi/Moscow  - Four months after the war in Georgia, Georgia's Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili continued to award key portfolios in his cabinet Tuesday.

Georgia's former ambassador to the US, David Sicharulidse, was going to head the country's Defence Ministry, while Lasha Shvania, another diplomat, would be economics minister, the prime minister was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

The appointments followed the dismissals of Eka Tkeshelashvili as foreign minister and David Keserashvili as defence minister.

Moscow/Tbilisi - The government of Georgia sees room for restoring diplomatic relations with Russia despite the war the two nations fought in August, says Georgia's new foreign minister, according to a Russian newspaper.

"We are open to negotiations," said Grigol Vasadze, quoted in the Monday edition of Kommersant, a Moscow daily.

Commentators say Vasadze's appointment is a positive sign for relations between Russia and Georgia. Vasadze lived in Russia for 30 years and still holds Russian citizenship.

Helsinki  - Proposals to continue Geneva-based peace talks between Russia and Georgia were welcomed Thursday by several foreign ministers in Finland to attend a meeting of the 56-nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The European Union and the OSCE helped broker a ceasefire after the war in August. That included the stationing of military monitors from the OSCE.