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| Front lines: Russia took control of S. Ossetia's capital after Georgian troops attempted to retake the breakaway region. Gleb Garanich/Reuters |
Russian clout prevails in S. Ossetia
Georgian President Saakashvili called for international mediation over the breakaway region in a conflict some see as East vs. West.
from the August 11, 2008 edition
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Pat Murphy talks with
Monitor correspondent Fred Weir about the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Russia, on the other hand, depicts its involvement as a Kosovo-style "humanitarian intervention" aimed at protecting South Ossetia's Russian passport-holding population under its peackeeping mandate.
The Russian media has broadcast nonstop images of carnage in the embattled region, which it attributes to Georgian atrocities against the ethnically distinct, pro-separatist Ossetian population of an estimated 70,000 people.
(Under a 1992 Russian law, all former Soviet citizens have the right to apply for Russian citizenship, and the vast majority of inhabitants in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have since taken advantage of this.)
"Russia is not at war" with Georgia, defense ministry spokesman Anatoly Nagovitsyn told journalists in Moscow Sunday. "Our main goal is to stabilize the situation in South Ossetia."
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Krasin, talking to journalists in Moscow Sunday, did not rule out peace talks but suggested that they would be difficult and could only begin when Georgia meets certain conditions.
"Russia wants troops returned to their 1992 positions," meaning the withdrawal of all Georgian forces from the territory of the Soviet-era autonomous republic of South Ossetia, he said. "The Georgian leadership should sign an obligation not to use force [in the future].... Without this, we cannot discuss the beginning of any talks."
There are growing hints, however, that Russia may be planning to use its military victory to permanently dismember Georgia. Russian officials are employing language uncannily similar to that used by NATO when it seized the Albanian-populated province of Kosovo in a 1999 war and then recognized its permanent break from Serbia earlier this year.
"The actions of the Georgian leadership in South Ossetia are a crime against their own people," said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who flew to the Russian republic of North Ossetia on Saturday. "There are elements of some kind of genocide against the Ossetian people. It's hard to imagine, after all that's happened, that they'll be able to convince South Ossetia to be a part of Georgia."
South Ossetia, which is ethnically linked to the more populous Russian province of North Ossetia, appealed to Russia's State Duma last year to be annexed to Russia. Abkhazia, a mountainous Black Sea enclave of about 200,000, depends on Russia for aid and protection but insists that it wants independence.
"Georgia has lost South Ossetia and Abkhazia forever," says Maxim Gunjia, Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister, reached by telephone in Sukhumi, Abkhazia. He says Abkhazia has fully mobilized its armed forces in expectation of a Georgian attack, and has mounted an operation to retake the disputed Kodori Gorge, presently occupied by Georgia. "After these events, it's impossible to speak about reconciliation. Georgia has shown its true face."
'New geopolitical competition' with Russia
Georgian experts urge caution about Russian claims of brutality against the Ossetians. "I know atrocities are always committed in any military action, but that can only be judged after the conflict by an independent team of investigators," says George Tarkhan-Mouravi, codirector of the independent Institute for Policy Studies in Tbilisi. He says the war will leave many lingering questions in Georgians' minds. "It's difficult to judge Saakashvili's image just now, but when things calm down people will question whether this was an adventure, or whether it was well planned," he says.
The outlook for Russia's future relations with the West is grim, says Mr. Asmus, the former diplomat, now head of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. "No one in the West wants a new cold war, but it's clear that despite everything we may have hoped for we are in a new geopolitical competition in the old Soviet spheres of influence. We may lose Georgia. We may lose the project of the "Rose Revolution," the best chance for a democratic future in the Caucasus. The next target for Moscow will be Ukraine," which also aspires to join NATO, he adds.
Robert Marquand contributed from Paris.
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