If Only They Had Run-Flats

Nothing’s stranger than the truth…or so the saying goes. But would you believe that a flat tyre could have led to recent war between Georgia and Russia? According to The Telegraph, a flat tyre on a Russian diplomatic car did exactly that. When the diplomat the car in question was supposed to be carrying failed to arrive at peace talks in South Ossetia the day before fighting broke, it seems the two states passed the point of no return. Refusing to take his excuse at face value, the Georgian government feared the worst and began the pre-emptive shelling that “invited” the subsequent Russian invasion.

“Two days before, the South Ossetians had started using Russian positions to shoot at our troops. But we decided to make the trip anyway because a direct meeting would have been a breakthrough,” Timur Yakobashvili, Georgia’s chief negotiator told the Telegraph. Asked as to whereabouts of the rest of the delegation, Russian General Kulakhmetov held up his phone to the Georgian negotiator’s ear to demonstrate that the South Ossetian delegate had turned his mobile off. As if that wasn’t enough, a further call to the Russian diplomat chairing the calls revealed that the spare car also had a flat.”