I think the Flankers shot down the MiG-29s, and it was more something like 3-4, but one of them was a MiG-29 UB shot down by a ethiopian female pilot.
Apart from that, most combat on both sides was done by russians/ukrainians (didn't matter much in those days before Ukraine went orange).
Same goes for the Su-25s in Macedonia in 1999. If somebody suddenly starts to have modern russian hardware and uses it operationally, it usually means the pilots came with the planes.
Regarding the georgian situation, Georgia (the government, not the people) always reminds me of a small boy insulting a big boy (Russia) while hiding behind his very large but slightly demented brother (the US :D).
Sakashvili uses Russia as the general root of all evil, mainly because Georgia is piss poor and he managed to disappoint pretty much every hope the people had in him when he made his coup.
Think of Georgia as a latin american country like Colombia, only in the Caucasus. The people are even similar in mentality.
The problem with Abkhazia is that these people are ethnically not georgian, so if someone grands independence to Kosovo because the majority is ethnically different from Serbia, the same applies here. Also, Abkhazia is de facto independent since the mid 1990s, and the claim that this is "georgian territory" is ridiculous. De jure it is, but de facto the georgian government has no control over this region. A seperate government exists, which also has its own armed forces. In a region where you have 100 nationalities in an area of the size of Belgium, the idea of a nation based on race is a bit stretched anyway. The Caucasus is full of very ancient and weird cultures, most of which can not stand each other.
The soviets just kept the peace by treaty everybody as equal (sending everybody to siberia if he made trouble, regardless of race :D).
But that only applies until Gorbatchev came to power, after that the soviet union started acting politically correct and started respecting minority rights and stuff....
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"War is the most dangerous thing that can happen to an army. It destroys discipline, makes soldiers look dirty, stains clothes and damages equipment. It is therefore to be avoided at all costs"
- § 1, electoral saxon military doctrine, 1750