Russia is ready to send observers to the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, according to Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, Nikolay Bordyuzha. The organisation was set up in 2002 and now has Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members.

Russia's decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has prompted a wave of international reaction, but the resolution of the EU Parliament will be well balanced, says Tatyana Zhdanok MEP, who joined RT live from Brussels.

The west has come down hard on Russia's decision to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and is urging Moscow to change its course. The Head of the Russian OSCE mission in Pristina, Vladimir Kozhin, says it’s a result of ignorance, and principally a biased position, that most EU officials take.

In the U.S. presidential race it is John McCain who has gained the greater following after the conflict in South Ossetia, says analyst Evgeny Kozhokin. He believes this is because many Americans regard McCain as being more competent in dealing with Russia than Obama.

In an exclusive interview with RT, the president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, says that his newly-recognised country has no bad feelings against the Georgian people as a whole, calling them hostages of the current administration.

“I’m ashamed as an American. My country has been taken over by a private international military industrial complex, and they launched a sneaky attack on the Russian enclaves,” says Alex Jones, an investigative journalist from infowars.com. 

The fact that Kosovo was granted independence despite Russia’s opposition, made Russians feel that they have to show the West that Russia is once again a great power, said George Friedman from political intelligence analysts, Stratfor.