Russia-Georgia tensions escalate over breakaway republic

The reported downing of two unmanned Georgian spy drones over Abkhazia come as both sides accuse each other of preparing for war.

By Simon Montlake

posted May 06, 2008 at 10:00 am EDT

The reported downing of two more Georgian spy planes over the breakaway republic of Abkhazia on Sunday has escalated tensions between Georgia and neighboring Russia. Each country accuses the other of preparing for war over the tiny territory. Last week Russia sent extra peacekeepers to the border between Georgia and Abkhazia, which is seeking to emulate Kosovo by declaring full independence.

Georgia fought a brief war against Abkhazia in the early 1990s, and Russian officials have warned that Georgia may try to use force again to assert its claim. Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze denied this and dismissed Abkhazia's claim to have shot down two unmanned Georgian drones over the weekend. He told Reuters that Georgia was interested in economic development, not war, and in turn accused Russia of stirring tensions by supporting Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another breakaway state.

"It's clearly not in our interest to destabilise the situation and disrupt such amazing and rapid economic progress by having hostility on our territory," Gurgenidze said in an interview with Reuters.

"We are dealing with the Russian attempt to essentially legalise the results of the ethnic cleansing that took place in 1993.... The time has come for urgent and outcome-oriented major international diplomatic action to de-escalate the situation."

Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reports that Abkhazia is seeking Russian security protection. In a Russian newspaper interview published Tuesday, the breakaway state's foreign minister said Russia should "bring our territory under its military control" in return for security guarantees. However, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said no such discussions were under way.

Two weeks ago, Georgia said a Russian warplane had shot down another reconnaissance aircraft over Abkhazia and showed what it said was dramatic video footage of the incident. Russia denied its involvement and said the Georgian drone was violating a prior UN cease-fire accord. The spat highlighted a foreign-policy debate in Moscow over how to tackle its pro-Western neighbors, reported The Christian Science Monitor. Russia fears the advance of NATO to its borders as a security challenge that needs a firm response. But some analysts caution that overreacting may alienate neighboring ex-Soviet states further and force them into the arms of Western powers.

Last month, Russia established legal ties with Abkhazia and has issued Russian passports to many residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, stoking Georgian claims of annexation of its territory. However, Russia has stopped short of formally recognizing the two regions' independence, a move that would badly damage ties with the West, says the Associated Press.

Bloomberg says that Russia's foreign ministry recently accused its neighbor of girding for war and says Georgia has massed over 1,500 troops in the Kodori Gorge area of Abkhazia. A spokesman for Georgia's interior ministry said that 500 police officers have been mobilized, but no military personnel. Russia has as many as 3,000 peacekeepers in Abkhazia under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate, up from around 2,000 previously.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the latest tensions come as Russia's new president Dmitry Medvedev prepares to take office Wednesday, replacing Vladimir Putin, who moves to become prime minister. Mr. Putin will continue to wield substantial power, both as prime minister and as chairman of the ruling United Russia party in parliament. However, Mr. Medvedev, who won a landslide election victory in March, will assume primary responsibility for Russia's foreign policy.

Moscow is preparing to stage a major military parade Friday featuring military hardware rarely seen in the post-Soviet era, says Agence France-Presse. Last week's May Day parade also evoked memories of cold war displays of weaponry, troops, and equipment. Mr. Putin denied that Friday's parade, part of inauguration celebrations for his successor, was saber-rattling intended to intimidate Russia's neighbors.

But as traffic police closed much of the city centre to rehearse the inauguration procession, the popular daily Izvestia said this week's events were intended to send a message to the outside world.

It included a photograph of the 100-tonne Topol strategic missile system that will be used in the parade, for which the cobblestones on Red Square have been specially reinforced.

The parade "can be taken as a call for the rebirth of our army... and as a signal to our partners in NATO who are moving their bases towards Russian borders," Izvestia said.

Other papers also linked the inauguration to rising tensions with the West and the NATO military alliance's expansion to former Soviet territory, as well as the latest spike in tension with Georgia.

The US has voiced strong support for Georgia's territorial claims and expressed its concern over Russia's troop buildup in the region, reported Agence France-Presse. But the US preoccupation with the race for the White House is likely to blunt any coordinated response to further Russian provocations, argues Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, who warns that opaque Russian politics make it difficult to judge Moscow's game plan. The repeated downing of Georgian spy planes and Russian warnings of a Georgian invasion may a deliberate attempt to create a causus belli against a pro-Western neighbor.

It might not work – and for the moment the Georgians say they have no intention of declaring war. But Georgia holds parliamentary elections this month, under the leadership of a president who might be grateful for a chance to look bold. If the provocation works, or if Russia does invade Georgia – an emerging democracy, an aspiring NATO ally, [and] a country with troops in Iraq and many implicit assurances of security from Washington and Brussels – then the West will have to come up with a major response, if not military, then political and diplomatic.

Writing in an opinion piece in the Moscow Times, Alexander Golts says that both Georgia and Russia have much to lose in a potential military clash and argues that their actions are signals aimed at the US and NATO. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is seeking NATO membership after failing to restore control over the breakaway territories and wants to portray Moscow as a menacing presence in the region, while Russia wants to flex its muscles in the Caucasus without becoming embroiled in war.

Moscow appears determined to aggravate the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, taking pains to create the impression that Russia is ready not only to annex these "unrecognized territories," but to do so by force. The Kremlin is enraged that Georgia and Ukraine will eventually be allowed to join NATO, claiming that the West has unilaterally changed the fundamental rules that govern international relations. And Moscow is determined to aggravate the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, sending the message that the rules to its game in the Caucasus can be changed as well.

In reality, however, Moscow is not interested in war any more than Georgia is. If Russia were to defeat Georgia, it would violate one of the unstated principles of its foreign policy. Despite all of its militaristic rhetoric, in all the years of Putin's presidency, the Kremlin never once took an action that would be possible to consider as aggressive. A war with Georgia would mean that Russia, as the Soviet Union before it, represents a danger to the world community. And that would inevitably lead to sanctions and isolation. Russia's elite, whose families and money are located in the West, have no desire to see that happen.