Recent Developments in the Russia-Georgia Conflict

By Amanda Grinstead, TRNS intern

Tuesday August 12th

* A Dutch cameraman, Stan Storimans of RTL TV, was killed in Gori, and the correspondent accompanying him was wounded.

* the UK-based oil company BP shut down 3 of its pipelines as a “precautionary measure” in response to fighting in the region.

* Russian officials claimed that their actions were aimed at stopping Georgia’s military attacks on Russian peacekeeping forces and civilians, with one diplomat stating that as many as 2,000 people had perished after Georgia entered South Ossetia.

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia had had no option but to use military force against Georgia: “If Russia had a different option of reacting to Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia, we would have used it,” he said. “But we didn’t have this option. When several thousand civilians are killed, the state must act accordingly.”

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia, step down, although he said Russia was not demanding this.

Wednesday August 13th

* The French Presient Sarkozy, is to broker a 6-point ceasefire agreement between Russia and Georgia, to be submitted to the EU and then the UN Security Council. Sarkozy said that they are aiming to make the agreement “long-term”.


* The terms included immediate ceasefire and allowing humanitarian aid access to the conflict regions.

* This was announced only hours after Russia withdrew its military incursion into Georgia.

* Reports claimed that there are 15,000 Russian troops present in Georgia.

* George Bush said that Russia’s behaviour had seriously called into question its suitability as an ally of the US, and also that the G8 was considering expelling Russia as punishment for its aggression.


* Russia and Georgia both accused each other of breaking initial ceasefire.


* Lavrov claimed that Russian troops remain in Georgia to neutralise abandoned weapons arsenals and to enforce the peace that Georgia was ignoring.


* Saakashvili stated: “Russian tanks continue to ravage Georgia town and villages, killing people, destroying buildings, looting. … They’ve been doing worse things to what I’ve heard in the past and I could never imagine happening in my country.” He went on to blame the West, in part, for failing to respond to Russia adequately, and for failing to correctly read Russia’s intentions in Georgia.


* Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that Georgian government officials had fled Gori, and that Russian soldiers were providing food and water to residents, although there were other reports of looting.

Thursday August 14th

* US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to take a ceasefire document to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, which offers a slight concession to Russia and closes the loophole left by Sarkozy’s agreement: the French-brokered agreement allows for Russia to take “additional security measures” until an international agreement is reached- this was seen as permitting Russia to remain in Georgia outside the main zone of conflict. Under this ceasefire agreement 1,500 Russian peacekeeping troops are permitted to remain, and patrol up to 6 kilometers outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They may not patrol in Gori or any other cities, and may not hinder aid or control ports, highways or railways.

Friday August 15th

* Human Rights Watch said that there is evidence that Russia had been dropping cluster bombs on Georgian civilians, including over Gori, killing 11, and had also seen evidence that houses are being set on fire.

* Saakashvili signed the ceasefire agreement, brought by Rice to Tbilisi. It includes a provision for independent monitors and an eventual reconstruction plan for Georgia’s economy.


* Rice and Saakashvili met for almost 5 hours to discuss the agreement. Rice said that the priority was now for Russia to withdraw.


* Later on Friday, Sarkozy says Medvedev confirmed Russia’s cooperation.

Saturday August 16th

* Georgia accused Russian troops of mining and exploding a key railway bridge and starting huge fires in the Borjomi Gorge, in spite of the new ceasefire agreement.


* The bridge connects East and West Georgia and has been a main route for refugees fleeing the fighting- the Georgian Ministry for Foreign Affairs claimed that Russia was deliberately trying to bring about “humanitarian catastrophe”.


* Georgia’s Interior Ministry also said that Russian-backed militias members have seized control of 13 Georgian villages and a power plant in the region.


* Russian troops remained within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of Tbilisi and were on the western front of Abkhazia.

Sunday August 17th

* Russia stated that it would begin withdrawing its forces into a buffer zone and South Ossetia on Monday 18th.

* However, Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said Moscow will withdraw only when it is “assured that Georgians will not continue to use military force” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Monday August 18th

* Medvedev spoke, threatening punishment for the Georgians whom he claimed were responsible for ethnic cleansing in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia has made similar accusations of genocide.


* Georgia’s ambassador to the United States, Vasil Sikharulidze, said the Russian push into Georgia had been long planned:
“You just don’t move more than 1,200 tanks and 15,000 soldiers into a country within 12 hours without previous planning.”


* The Georgian Foreign Ministry said that a Russian armoured column had been sighted moving deeper into Georgian territory, travelling south of Kashuri, which is roughly 10 miles south of South Ossetia.

Tuesday August 19th

* Hopes of peace were bolstered when Russia and Georgia exchanged captured soldiers, though later at the port of Poti Russia took 21 Georgian military police officers hostage, and reportedly seized 4 American military vehicles.

* In Brussels, at an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of NATO’s members, NATO’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer accused Russia of ignoring the terms of the ceasefire agreed last week by not withdrawing its troops to their positions before August 6th.

* Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov claimed that NATO is “biased” to Georgia’s side, while Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that troops remained in order to protect the South Ossetia border.


* Ministers at the NATO meeting said that they were “seriously” considering the implications of Russia’s actions on the NATO-Russia relationship. Scheffer said: “As long as Russian forces are basically occupying a large part of Georgia, I cannot see a NATO-Russia Council convene at whatever level.”


* Scheffer stated that a NATO-Georgia Commission is to be set up to assess Georgia’s relationship with NATO, supervise its bid for membership, and provide assistance in Tbilisi, the capital. 50 NATO staff are to be sent to Georgia to assist with air traffic control and assess the needs of Georgia’s military.


* US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Russia was isolating itself by “invading smaller neighbours, bombing civilian infrastructure, going into villages and wreaking havoc and (carrying out) the wanton destruction of (Georgia’s) infrastructure.


* The Bush administration claimed that Russia was trying to undermine Georgia because of the pro-West stance of its President, Saakashvili. Bush wants the suspension of all Russia-NATO cooperation for the moment, and also for Europe to lessen its dependence on Russia for energy supplies.


* Medvedev issued fresh commitment to withdraw, but at the same time pulled the Russian navy out of NATO exercises- relations between Russia and NATO are at an all-time low.


* The French presidency stated that: “President Medvedev announced to Sarkozy that the withdrawal of Russian troops will be concluded August 21-22, with the exception of a team of 500 personnel charged with implementing additional security measures under article five of the August 12 agreement.”

Listen to Audio File

* The history of Georgia is full of conflict, and for thousands of years its inhabitants have constantly struggled to maintain their territorial independence. Before the might of Russia was first felt in the 18th century, Georgia had been a part of many great empires (such as those of Rome, Byzantium, Ottoman Turkey, and Safavid Persia), though it has also gone through periods of hard-fought-for independence.

* In 1801 the Russian Tsar took advantage of internal conflict in Georgia and in September Alexander I confirmed the incorporation of Russia’s southern neighbour into the Empire.

* By the end of the century a national liberation movement had developed in opposition to Russian rule. The Marxist Social Democratic Movement was gaining much support and the Menshevik wing of the party (more moderate than its revolutionary brother, Bolshevism) came to dominate politics in Georgia, as in the rest of Russia.

* Notably, Joseph Stalin, a native of Georgia, came to lead the revolutionary Bolshevik party in his home country.

* Georgian nationalism was widespread, and when the Revolution of 1917 plunged Russia into disarray, this territory declared its independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia. This freedom was short-lived, however, and early in 1921 the Bolsheviks’ Red Army annexed Georgia to Russia once more.

* Georgia was ruled by the Soviet Union until 1991. Soviet Rule was bloody, and around 50,000 people were killed between 1921 and 1924, while Stalin purged another 150,000. Georgia’s relations with the Soviet Union were never very good: they suffered under Krushchev’s policy of de-Stalinisation, which was strongly critical of the always-nationalistic Georgian people (since Stalin himself was Georgian).


* Communist Georgia endured further problems in the late 1980s: the First Secretary, Patiashvili, was ill-equipped to deal with the challenges brought by Perestroika, and violence increased between the Soviet authorities, Georgian nationalists and other nationalist minority groups (notably those from Abkhazia and South Ossetia). A landmark event was the violent break-up of a peaceful demonstration at the government building in Tbilisi, the capital, on April 9th, 1989- twenty Georgians were killed, and hundreds more were wounded or poisoned. The event contributed to the radicalisation of Georgian politics and encouraged many to conclude that an end to Soviet rule was desirable.


* Independence finally came on April 9th 1991, after the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia held a referendum on March 31st- this was approved by 98.9% of the vote. In the following years Georgia experienced high levels of political unrest and violence; for example the first president, Gamsakhurdia, was ousted in a violent coup d’etat only a few months after taking office. Further problems ensued in 1992 as ethnic and separatist clashes occurred in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as the regions attempted to break with Georgia; hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Russian-controlled territories in the north. Gamsakhurdia later returned and led a rebellion against the government, though this was successfully crushed.


* Relations with Russia deteriorated from the mid-1990s onwards due, in part, to the pro-Western stance of Georgia’s leaders which Russia has been strongly opposed to. The United States sent considerable amounts of aid to Georgia, for example setting up the Georgia Train and Equip Programme to assist the nation’s military, and Georgia signed a strategic partnership with NATO, expressing desire to join both NATO and the EU. A powerful coalition of pro-Western reformists led by Mikheil Saakashvili, among others, united in November 2003 to oppose Shevardnadze’s corrupt government in the parliamentary elections- massive demonstrations were organised in Tbilisi when it became apparent that the elections were rigged. After two weeks of tension Shevardnadze resigned, and Saakashvili won the presidential election of January 2004 with a huge majority of 96% of votes cast. Saakashvili has been in power in Georgia ever since, and has faced many problems- peace in the unrecognised autonomous republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has always been fragile and until now has relied on assistance from Russia and the United Nations.


* Until Russia’s invasion of Georgia this August, relations between the two nations have been difficult given Russia’s continuous support of the separatist governments of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as the presence of two Russian garrisons in these regions. The Georgia-Russia Espionage Controversy of 2006 also did much to harm relations between the two states, when in September four Russian officers were arrested in Georgia on charges of espionage. A diplomatic war ensued which world organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, attempted to diffuse.


* The rising tensions between Russia and Georgia in 2008 have been expressed chiefly through continuous denunciations and accusations by both sides, while violence has increased in separatist, pro-Russian Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The immediate build-up to the August 2008 military conflict began when Russia dropped the economic sanctions imposed on Abkhazia by the Commonwealth of Independent States in March of the same year- Karl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, stated that this action looked like a ‘de facto annexation’, and his opinion was certainly shared in Georgia. The crisis deepened when a Georgian unmanned, unarmed, aerial vehicle was shot down over Abkhazia on April 20th- Georgia accused Russia of being responsible, on the basis of video footage of a Russian MiG-29 shooting down the drone. Early in May Russia and Abkhazia responded by claiming that three more Georgian reconnaissance drones had been shot down, and they declared that Georgia was planning a military offensive on the region, though these allegations were dismissed by Georgian officials as provocative and propagandistic.


* On May 31st Russia sent apparently-unarmed railway troops into Abkhazia, allegedly to repair a railway line- this was condemned as an act of aggression and an infringement of Georgia’s sovereignty by NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and the troops were pulled out on July 30th. In July violence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia continued to escalate, and in Moscow there was outcry over Condoleezza Rice’s endorsement of Georgia’s proposed membership of NATO. On July 15th, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were said to be planning to join the Union of Russia and Belarus but that they would need to be recognized as independent before they could join the Union as members. Georgia said on July 16 that if Russia did not accept a plan for resolving the conflict Georgia would be forced to “unilaterally bring an influence to bear on the deployment of armed forces in Abkhazia.”

* Tensions reached breaking point and on August 1st South Ossetian and Georgian forces clashed- seven days later Russia sent troops across the border, transforming a separatist conflict into a full-scale war between Russia and Georgia.

 

 Russia Georgia Conflict - Background and Context: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“In the days and weeks ahead the Department of Defense will reexamine the whole gambit of our relationship with the Russian military,” said Secretary Robert Gates during a press briefing at the Pentagon. Gates said that not only was the Russian offensive against Georgia designed to punish Georgia for their claim and involvement in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but to send a message on those seeking to build relationships with western nations.” I think that the Russian further message was to all of the parts of the former Soviet Union as a signal about trying to integrate with the west and move outside of the longtime Russian sphere of influence,” he said.

Gates and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright laid out the details of the U.S. humanitarian mission to Georgia, which has been involved in heavy fighting with Russia over the past week.

“Generally they are moving out of the cities,” said Cartwright of Russian forces which had gone as far as Gori, a town in central Georgia. “The air activities have slowed dramatically over the last 24 hours,” he said.

President Bush has charged the Department of Defense with a humanitarian mission to bring relief supplies to Georgians. Gates said that the relief mission will be the focus point. “I don’t see any prospect for the use of military force by the US in this situation,” said Gates. He also said that American support is “sequenced” with the humanitarian mission coming first and then security to execute that mission and then some kind of economic reconstruction.

Gates set the tone for a slow rebuilding of relations between the U.S. and Russia. When asked if he trusted Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Gates said, “I have never believe that one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think that you make national security policy based on interests and on realities.”

Gen. Norton Schwatrz, the newly appointed Air Force Chief of Staff, says that an aid flight to Tblisi, Georgia was a success. Northern and central Georgia has become a combat zone in a territory dispute with Russia. (0:19)

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice spoke to reporters after briefing President Bush on the ongoing diplomatic efforts to resolve the crises in Georgia.
She said that all parties must agree to a cease-fire, and all military operations need to stop. The US is for the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Georgia and support the democratically elected Georgian government. (1:54)

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Briefer: Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto

President’s Schedule

This morning President Bush got an update from National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and also spoke to Secretary Rice on the phone. He then received his daily intelligence briefings where Georgia was also discussed.
There have been a number of calls made to foreign leader in the last 24 hours: Yesterday, President Bush made calls from Air Force One to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Lithuanian President Adamkus, and President Kaczynski of Poland. Following last night’s statement in the Rose Garden, he also spoke with Georgian President Saakashvili. This morning, President Bush talked to Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and Chancellor Merkel of Germany.
At 1.15 pm, the President will meet with the Coalition for Affordable American Energy. (more…)

Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Vitaly Churkin, claimed that Russia will cease military activity when Georgia is ready to “accept our modest conditions.” (5:23)

 

 Russian Ambassador: We'll Pull Troops From Georgia When Our "Conditions" Are Met: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mr. Irakli Alasania, Georgian Ambassador to the United Nations, claimed that Russia targeted Georgian president in air-strikes. Mr. Alasania also strongly urged the Security Council to stop the violence immediately, lest the UN suffer the fate of the League of Nations (2:27)

 

 Georgian Ambassador Claims President Targeted By Russiands: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

United States ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, expressed a desire to retain positive relations with Russia, but stressed that the violence must stop. Mr. Khalilzad also stated that a draft resolution will circulate in the Security Council, and it’s passage depends entirely on Russia (5:00)

 

 US Ambassador Kahlilzad: “we cannot be indifferent to the brutality of these attacks”: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The President of the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Jan Grauls, discussed the status of the Security Council discussions on Russia / Georgia violence. (2:03)

 

 Security Council President Breifs Press on Continuing Georgia Russia Violence: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download