Either way, be it Georgia on the Black Sea or Georgia with a sea of Blacks, they have invaded a sovereign country, pardon the pun :-)

Russian propaganda is not very effective abroad, I agree. Russia was obviously unprepared for the informational dimension of this war. She had no experts fluent in news-speak ready to explain their position. No foreign journalists with its forces or in the region (which might be good since that place is the unclean anus of the nation). Russia still has no voice in non-russian media. No gray-bearded professors immediately available for interview, no good looking women to make an emotional appeal, no slick young men to explain the finer points of policy... These KGBmen should have sold some old style steel tanks and gotten some new style spin-tanks. Who wants to bet that they will not learn from this?

Anyone remember how Kazakhstan reacted to Borat movie? Same clumsy way. These people never learn.