War in Georgia

Tuesday 02 December 2008

NATO members have come to a compromise over membership action plans for Ukraine and Georgia at a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels. The agreement offers support to the two former Soviet nations to help them develop their infrastructure and defence, but it does not provide any concrete plans of how or when they can join. The membership action plan (MAP) for Georgia and Ukraine was postponed due to concerns over political instability in Ukraine, and because of Georgia’s military conflict in South Ossetia in August this year. The MAP, launched in April 1999, assists those countries which want to join the alliance in their preparations by providing advice, assistance and practical support on all aspects of membership.
NATO foreign ministers agreed to gradually resume contacts with Russia, frozen after Russian military forces invaded Georgia in August. NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced the decision Tuesday, as NATO ministers met in Brussels for two days of wide-ranging talks. He said negotiations with Moscow will take place at the ambassador level. NATO ministers were also encouraging Georgia and Ukraine to pursue major political and economic reforms, with the aim of eventual entry into the alliance.
A Russian naval task force from the Northern Fleet and the Venezuelan navy have successfully conducted the VenRus-2008 joint exercises in the southern Caribbean, a Russian Navy spokesman said. "The active phase of the exercise was carried out according to a detailed plan, jointly developed by the Russian and Venezuelan navies," Capt 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said. "The Russian and Venezuelan warships have practiced deployment in the southern Caribbean, coordinated tactical maneuvering, air defense, search, pursuit and detention of a ship suspected of illegal activities," the spokesman said.

Monday 01 December 2008

The Russian Navy confirmed on 09 September 2008 that a fleet of warships belonging to the Russian Northern Fleet was preparing to cross the Atlantic Ocean and head for the Caribbean. The Venezuelan Defense Ministry says the Russian vessels will visit Caracas from November 24-30, when the joint exercises will begin. Washington immediately responded by mocking the Russian move, which is widely considered a response to NATO's increased naval presence in the Black Sea. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack jokingly said that if Russia really intended to send ships to the Caribbean, "then they found a few ships that can make it that far."
The squadron, led by the Northern Fleet’s flagship nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser Pyotr Veliky (named after Peter the Great, Czar Peter I of Russia) - one of the world’s largest heavily-armed nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers - will participate with the Venezuelan fleet in the Caribbean naval exercise in November 2008. During the joint exercises, the Russian navy is expected to deploy Moscow's most modern destroyer, the Udaloy-class Admiral Chabanenko anti-submarine destroyer, a rescue vessel and a tanker ship. This will be Russia’s first maneuver in the US backyard in nearly 20 years. The naval exercise will be conducted in Venezuelan waters between the 10th and 14th of November. The Russian and Venezuelan Navy will together perform dry runs of relief operations and test their tactical communication systems.
The official Russian governmental news service Russia Today stated that "The fact that the Russian cruiser was not designed as an instrument of attack, but instead for nuclear containment and defending nuclear submarines, this exercise looks more like an invitation to a dialogue with America rather than a military threat. Moreover, the fact that the American presidential campaign has entered its final stage, it is expected that both candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are going to exploit this naval exercise to their own benefit, verbalizing on the “return of the Russian threat”. This rhetoric may become the decisive factor for one of them to make the White House his home for the next four years."
The task force from the Northern Fleet is to visit the French naval base in Toulon on November 5-8. The Russian Navy commander, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, would meet with the French Navy chief of staff. After port calls and training at sea in the Mediterranean, the Northern Fleet warships will head for the Caribbean to hold exercises in November with Venezuela's navy.
Russia announced in 2007 that its Navy had resumed, and would build up, its constant presence in different regions of the world's oceans. A naval task force from Russia's Northern Fleet, consisting of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, the Udaloy-Class destroyers Admiral Levchenko and Admiral Chabanenko, as well as auxiliary vessels, conducted from December 2007 to February 2008 a two-month tour of duty in the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic.

Saturday 29 November 2008

Dmitry Medvedev welcomed a decision by the U.S. not to push for Georgia and Ukraine`s entry into NATO using the alliance`s so-called membership action plan (MAP). The Russian President said he was “glad” that “common sense prevailed” in the end. Speaking in Cuba on the final leg of his South American tour, Medvedev said he didn’t know how Washington had cometo this conclusion, but said he was relieved wisdom had won the day at least at the end of this administration’s term. "Whether they finally listened to Europe or someone else, the main thing is that this idea will not be pushed forward with such frenzy and futility as it was a short time ago,” Medvedev said.

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Russian warships sailed into port in Venezuela for a series of joint military exercises that mark Russia's first deployment in the Caribbean since the Cold War. The vessels, including the nuclear-powered cruiser, Peter the Great, and the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, arrived at the port of La Guaira, near Caracas, for the pending maneuvers. The ships sailed into port ahead of the arrival by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, who met this week with his host, President Hugo Chavez.

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Russia and Georgia wrapped up a round of talks aimed at easing tensions after a five-day war in August over Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. The United Nations and European Union sponsored Wednesday's eight-party talks in Geneva. Officials from South Ossetia and from the breakaway region of Abkhazia attended the meeting, along with a representative from the United States. The talks may have accomplished little in terms of concrete solutions to the issues that continue to divide Russia and Georgia since the five-day war. What was significant, however, was the simple fact that the parties actually met. Similar talks held in Geneva last month fell apart without the sides ever gathering in the same room.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Talks are scheduled to start in Geneva on the Russia-Georgia conflict. The first round of talks on the conflict began on October 15, but was suspended after the Georgian delegation refused to sit at the negotiating table with representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Amnesty says all sides in the August conflict may have committed abuses. In its new report, Amnesty says Georgian and Russian forces and militia fighters in the breakaway South Ossetia region should be investigated for war crimes during the conflict. Amnesty's John Dalhuisen says there is strong evidence of human rights violations, noting concerns over "indiscriminate attacks by Georgian forces on entering Tskhinvali and then Russian forces in reply. "Amnesty is also very concerned with the "looting, pillaging and destruction of civilian property essentially by South Ossetian forces and militia groups in aftermath of the conflict," said Dalhuisen.

Saturday 15 November 2008

Talks due to start in Geneva on Tuesday 18 November on the recent Russia-Georgia conflict must "concentrate on essential security issues" in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. "If we want to consider ways to guarantee security amid new conditions in the region and if we want to discuss issues that need to be resolved to create conditions for the return of refugees and displaced people we have to quit comparing status and put all procedural games to one side," Lavrov said in an interview broadcast Saturday on the Russian Ekho Moskvy radio station. He said that if these issues were resolved then the "two working groups on security and the creation of conditions for the return of refugees agreed on by the two presidents [Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy] will be able to calmly start work on the 18th of the month."

Monday 10 November 2008

The European Union said that talks on a new strategic partnership agreement with Russia would resume later this month, despite opposition from Lithuania. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters after an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels: "The presidency statement clearly backs the position of the Commission that we must go on with our negotiations." She said negotiations could take place after a meeting in Geneva on the August Russia-Georgia conflict, scheduled for November 18.

Sunday 09 November 2008

Two former British military officers are expected to provide crucial evidence that the conflict in South Ossetia was unleashed by Georgia, a British newspaper said on Sunday 09 November 2008. "Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain, and Stephen Young, a former RAF wing commander, are said to have concluded that, before the Russian bombardment began, Georgian rockets and artillery were hitting civilian areas in the breakaway region of South Ossetia every 15 or 20 seconds," The Sunday Times reported. According to the paper, the accounts by the two former British officers, who were senior figures in the mission deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the conflict area, seem likely to undermine the U.S.-backed claims of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that his little country was the innocent victim of Russian aggression.

Friday 07 November 2008

The New York Times has published an article which questions Georgia’s account of the conflict in South Ossetia in August this year. Based on the observations of OSCE monitors, it reports that Georgia was not acting defensively, but started the shelling of civilians in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinval. “The accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on August 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm,” says the New York Times report. It says the monitors did not record bombardments of Georgian villages prior to its attack on Tskhinval: “According to the monitors, however, no shelling of Georgian villages could be heard in the hours before the Georgian bombardment. At least two of the four villages that Georgia has since said were under fire were near the observers’ office in Tskhinvali, and the monitors there likely would have heard artillery fire nearby”.
The U.S. State Department said the Georgian attack in South Ossetia last August was a mistake, but that it did not justify Russia's large-scale intervention. The comments follow a critical newspaper assessment of the Tbilisi government's role in the crisis. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department. In its most specific comments on the subject to date, the State Department says Georgian leaders made a mistake when they attacked the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, in August. But officials here say overall culpability for the war may never be known, and the focus now should be on getting Georgia, and especially Russia, to heed ceasefire obligations, and help return the region to stability.

Tuesday 04 November 2008

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has replaced the country's military leader, saying "shortcomings" during a war with Russia need addressing. "We must not forget that the enemy still stands at our door," said Saakashvili, who had not previously criticized the military's performance despite Russia driving the Georgian Army from breakaway South Ossetia in just a few days in August's war.
Georgia's Foreign Ministry rejected Russian charges that the country is blocking planned talks on security in the Caucasus later this month. A ministry statement said Georgia is fully prepared to take part in the talks scheduled for November 18 and blamed Russia for the stalemate in the earlier round of discussions in Geneva held on October 15. Both Georgian and Russian delegates walked out of inaugural talks in Geneva earlier this month, after Georgia objected to Russian demands for the presence of separatist representatives at the session.

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Russia says it opposes the deployment of European Union monitors inside two Georgian breakaway territories that Moscow now recognizes as independent countries. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov outlined his country's view in St. Petersburg, alongside his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner. Lavrov said security in South Ossetia and a second Georgian breakaway territory, Abkhazia, will be guaranteed by thousands of Russian troops now deployed in the territories.
Russia's foreign minister warned Georgia that its refusal to attend Geneva talks along with South Ossetian and Abkhazian representatives would threaten regional security. Sergei Lavrov was asked by reporters to comment on remarks by Grigol Vashadze, a Georgian deputy foreign minister, that Tbilisi was ready for discussions in Geneva, scheduled for November 18, but opposed the participation of representatives from the separatist Georgian republics. "If Georgia really refuses to participate in the Geneva discussions while South Ossetian and Abkhazian representatives attend, this is sad. It is an outright challenge to all those concerned about regional security," Lavrov said following Russia-EU talks.
Russia says Georgia should not be allowed to use billions of dollars in aid from the EU to upgrade its military. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov brought the issue up at a meeting with representatives from the European Union in St. Petersburg. Diplomats also discussed ways of reviving talks on a new Russia-EU partnership, postponed in the wake of the South Ossetia conflict.
Russia will keep an eye on the countries that supplied weapons to Georgia, supporting Mikhail Saakashvili’s regime in August 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev said at today’s meeting of the presidential Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation with foreign countries. “We know how zealously some countries delivered weapons to Mikhail Saakashvili’s regime, spurring it to aggression; and currently they are actually re-loading this regime with new arms supplies,” Medvedev emphasized. “We will not forget it, shaping our policy accordingly, and I would like everyone to know that,” he added.

Monday 27 October 2008

Reports from Georgia say President Mikheil Saakashvili has fired reformist Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze. Mr. Gurgenidze, a 37-year-old technocrat and former banker, became prime minister late last year, with the primary task of attracting foreign investment and maintaining a high rate of economic growth. The five-day military conflict with Russia in August has since eroded investor confidence and slowed what otherwise was widely seen as a healthy economy. The move comes amid growing tensions between President Saakashvili and his former ally, the ex-speaker of parliament, Nino Burdzhanadze. She has announced she's forming an opposition party and is accusing the Georgian leader of preventing the formation of a democratic society.
Abkhazia doubts the ability of EU observers in Georgia to play a constructive role in preventing further conflict, Abkhazia's foreign minister said in a letter to the UN Security Council president. "The replacement of the CIS Collective Forces in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone with European Union observers will not resolve the security problems in the region," Sergei Shamba told Zhang Yesui in the letter.

Sunday 26 October 2008

The leader of Georgia's pro-Russian breakaway Abkhazia region has ordered Abkhazian military forces to retaliate against what he calls all "provocations" from the Georgian side. The warning from Abkhaz separatist leader Sergei Bagapsh is the latest volley in a war of words pitting Abkhazia and another pro-Russian separatist region, South Ossetia, against the Georgian government. An explosion has destroyed a key bridge linking Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia with the rest of the country.

Friday 24 October 2008

Georgian officials and Abkhazian authorities blamed each other for the blast. Residents of Abkhazia's Gali district had used the bridge to reach Georgia's Zugdidi region. Georgian authorities have called the explosion an effort by separatist and Russian officials to cut off Abkhazia and another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, from the rest of the country.
The EU observers’ mission is failing to curb Georgian violations of the peace plan, Russia’s Foreign Minister has said. Sergey Lavrov has accused the European Union of "playing with fire". “The Georgian side is not fulfilling its obligations to return its troops to their military bases,” he said. He added that Georgia “regularly sends special forces and other armed units to the areas bordering South Osetia and Abkhazia”. ”We are especially worried by the fact that the European Union observers pay too little attention to these actions. We should not forget that the European Union acts as a guarantor of the non-use of force against South Osetia and Abkhazia,” he said.

Thursday 23 October 2008

Georgia said Russia deployed 2,000 additional troops into South Ossetia in the past week and was preparing "provocations" in the breakaway territory. "In the past week, Russia increased the number of troops by 2,000, to 7,000 staff," Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told a news conference. The Kremlin has said it would station 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to provide security.
Georgia has not lived up to its commitment to return troops to their bases after the armed conflict over South Ossetia in August, Russia's foreign minister said. "Georgia has not fulfilled its obligations to redeploy troops to their permanent positions of deployment," Sergei Lavrov said. He said Georgia occasionally sent commandos or other military units to areas adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian republic. "We are worried that European Union monitors have so far been paying little attention to such matters," Lavrov said. Russia's top diplomat also dismissed claims by the Georgian Foreign Ministry that the number of Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia had increased from 2,000 to 7,000. "It is difficult to comment on statements by Georgian representatives because they contain little truth, and, unfortunately, this recent method of throwing out false information has been used regularly," Lavrov said. He said Russia had deployed around 3,700 troops in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia under friendship and cooperation agreements with the two republics.
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA writes that a meeting of U.S. and Russian military top brass has achieved more in the sense of repairing bilateral relations that suffered during the conflict in the Caucasus than several meetings of the two nation’s diplomats. The paper says at the meeting in Helsinki, the Chief of the Russian military’s General Staff General Nikolay Makarov and Admiral Michael Mullen and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed on a plan of normalisation of bilateral military contacts, and there is a hint that they also decided to attempt to return relations between Russia and NATO to the format of the NATO-Russia council by the end of this year.
The US Northrop Grumman Electronic System Corporation’s delegation offers its service to Georgia in the air system improvement. This topic was discussed by the Northrop Grummen representatives at the meeting held in the Defence Ministry. Four-person delegation was received by the First Deputy Defence Minister, Batu Kutelia. The meeting was attended by the Deputy Chief of JS, Brigadier General Davit Nairashvili, Commander of the Air Forces, Col. Zurab Pochkhua and Head of Communication Department - J6, LTC Mamuka Liparteliani. Representatives of the corporation presented its production and introduced technical information to the Georgian side. Technical details of TV, radio, air communications and electronic systems was discussed as well. Prospects of bilateral cooperation between Georgia and Northrop Grumman will be considered during the Bilateral Defence Consultations which is going to be hold in Washington next week.

Wednesday 22 October 2008

International donors have offered $4.5 billion in aid to Georgia. The money is expected to be spent on rebuilding the country’s economy and infrastructure damaged after the conflict between Georgia and Russia last August. The amount is a billion and a half dollars more than the figure initially estimated by the World Bank. On Wednesday, 67 states and financial institutions met in Brussels to discuss the financial aid for Tbilisi. According to the global corruption watchdog Transparency International, this is more than the Georgian government budgeted to spend in 2009. It is also the equivalent of almost $1000 for each of the country's residents.
NATO will continue patrolling Baltic airspace until at least 2011, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff has told the Latvian president. U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen discussed defense and NATO issues with Latvian President Vladis Zatlers, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins and Defense Minister Vinets Veldr. NATO fighters guard the Baltic nations' airspace and perform the peacetime air defense and air policing function. U.S. Air Force F-15 aircraft based at Lakenheath, England, currently have that mission as part of NATO. "It is a NATO mission that many nations have stepped up to in the past and will continue, certainly through 2011," Mullen said.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

The world doesn’t need a new confrontation with Russia and anyone wanting one is irresponsible. That was the clear message conveyed by French President Sarkozy to the European Parliament as he outlined the outcomes of last week's summit in Brussels. Speaking in Strasbourg, Sarkozy declared, “We do not believe the world needs a crisis between Europe and Russia. It would be irresponsible. We can defend our ideas about the respect for sovereignty, the integrity of Georgia, human rights, the differences that we have, and so on. But it would be irresponsible to create conditions that would lead to a conflict, of which we have no need.”
Russia is being made to pay for the financial blunders made by the US as it fights the effects of the global financial crisis, according to Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian President was speaking at the opening of the Square of Russia in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. "We have an open economy now and we feel the impact of the global economic crisis,” he said. “In fact, we're paying for the blunders made by a number of countries, including the US, since the American market exerts a weighty influence on the international market."
NATO fighters started exercises aimed at policing the airspace over the Baltic countries as part of the Baltic air-policing mission. The Baltic air-policing mission is a NATO air defense Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) in order to guard the airspace over the three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The current exercise involves up to 15 NATO aircraft from the Baltic States, the U.S., Poland and Denmark. Overall supervision of the exercise will be carried out from a NATO Combined Air Operations Center in Germany.

Monday 20 October 2008

A senior U.S. official has said the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave could be resolved within the next two months. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, in an exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Armenian Service correspondent Ruzanna Stepanian, said that "there are hard decisions that have to be made on both sides. If this conflict were easy to resolve, it would have been resolved already."
NOVAYA GAZETA says that the financial crisis made everyone so busy at the EU summit in Brussels that there was no time left to discuss Russia and the aftermath of the Georgia – South Ossetia conflict. European leaders, writes the paper, one after another spoke of change and reform. The most energetic of all was the president of France Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants a totally new ‘market socially-oriented model of capitalism’.

Sunday 19 October 2008

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says a large number of people displaced by violence in Georgia have returned to their villages in the buffer zone around the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from UNHCR headquarters in Geneva. UN refugee agency spokesman Ron Redmond says monitoring teams report more than 20,000 people have headed home since Russia withdrew its troops from the buffer zone on October eighth. "Out of the 133,000 internally displaced people registered by the Georgians in August, we estimate that more than 78,000 have returned to their homes across Georgia," UN refugee agency spokesman Ron Redmond said. "And, we are carrying out a winterization program for those people who are unable to go home and who are living in various collective centers around the country, getting those buildings into shape for winter."