Who the Hell is That?!

Justyna Mielnikiewicz for The New York Times

This is neither here nor there, but I'd just like to point out that the soldier on the extreme left of this shot is wearing neither standard Russian military footwear nor fatigues; in fact, it looks like he's wearing sneakers and sweats. If that's the case, then I think the Russian military is in even worse shape than previously thought, or (perhaps more plausibly) the soldier on the left is a local fighter from Abkhazia or South Ossetia. I wonder if there's something in international law about professional foreign forces fighting alongside locals in civil conflicts....