Quote Originally Posted by Jedburgh View Post
Yet more competing analysis; contrast this one with the EDM article Kaur posted above....

Window on Eurasia, 13 Aug 08: Was There a Russian Intelligence Failure in Georgia?
Ted, an intriguing spin. After that read I still wonder about the convenient absence of both Medvedev and Putin. Recent history with conflicts puts both the Russian President and PM firmly at the helm. Estonian news had a fantastic clip of Putin explaining to a very red-faced Medvedev, "I was there in the middle of all of it!" with Medvedev just shaking his head to the affirmative.

What might have happened in the Russian intelligence services had worked more effectively? Moscow could have raised an alarm diplomatically and reinforced its position on the ground in Ossetia militarily. Tbilisi would certainly have denied that it planned to do anything and complained yet again about what Moscow was doing.

There is of course one possible justification for Putin to hand out these awards to his colleagues in the intelligence business: Some of them may have been involved in “convincing the Georgian leader and his generals that Moscow would not risk introducing forces on the territory of Georgia.” For such an effort, Yermolin says, it is of course “possible to give awards.”
The latter seems to be the correct version.