I watched BBC newsnight tonight and listened with great understanding and interest to a Russian spokesman as he explained their official perspective.

I reflected on the images I had just seen on the news which showed Georgian civilians and Western press being shot at by Ossetian seperatists under the cool eye of the russian military on the road between Gori and Tblisi.

As the Russian Representative droned on, I stopped listening and yelled at the screen "why won't you withdraw then?".

Sadly my friends it is indeed true that without an immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops, combined with real policing, rounding up and repatriating of the rampaging Ossetians, the russians words distinctly lack any credibility.