Primarily, Kasparov travelled to Georgia for the 50th birthday of longtime friend and chess colleague Zurab Azmaiparashvili. The grandmaster stressed that his visit to Tbilisi was “not as a representative of the opposition, but as a chess player.” Given that, “it’s perfectly obvious that I don’t plan to turn down a meeting with the Georgian leadership,” said Kasparov. “I see nothing shameful in that.”

Kasparov met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday at the presidential palace, where the two discussed Russia-Georgia relations and a forthcoming youth chess world championship to be held in Georgia this September. He also met on Wednesday with Speaker of Parliament David Bakradze to talk about the two countries’ relations.

Speaking with journalists afterward, Kasparov said that all that had transpired between the Georgia and Russia in recent years “is more than the mind can comprehend.” While relations severely deteriorated after the August 2008 military conflict in South Ossetia, Kasparov asserted that Russia had begun a campaign against Georgia long before.

“The eviction of Georgians, the embargo on Georgian goods – this was all part of a plan,” said Kasparov, adding that the conflict in August “had been predetermined.”

Kasparov expressed concern that Georgian opposition leaders had recently met with members of the Russian government, saying that there was nothing to be gained through negotiations while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remained in power. “There are some things that will not change under Putin,” said Kasparov, citing as examples the imprisonment of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Russia’s presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. “While Putin is in the Kremlin, there cannot be any improvement in relations between Georgia and Russia,” he asserted.

That said, Kasparov was confident that no new military conflict between the two countries was on the horizon, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Referring to plans for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Kasparov said that “while Putin is building Sochi, there won’t be any war.” Given that Sochi lies just north of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, he explained, having a base there had always been necessary for the Russian government’s ability to organize construction for the games.

Kasparov noted that many Russians were critical of their government for its aggressive political stance towards Georgia, and stressed the importance of creating cultural contacts between citizens and civic organizations of the two countries. Referring to his own experiences in Georgia as a chess player, Kasparov explained that Russia-Georgia relations were a particularly painful topic for him. “I have many special memories connected with Tbilisi,” he said.

In an article published earlier this week by the Guardian, Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov chastises European leaders for forming increasingly close relationships with Russia and thus enabling the Kremlin’s violent suppression of free speech and human rights. Given the numerous annual murders of Russian journalists and activists and the Kremlin’s unbridled attempts to broadcast its own propaganda abroad, Kasparov calls on Europe to check these relationships at the door and reconsider its stand on human rights.

Don’t cosy up to Russia, Europe
Stifling free media, arresting journalists, bullying its neighbours – Moscow is stamping on freedoms and the EU turns a blind eye

By GARRY KASPAROV
February 23, 2010
The Guardian

In the capitals of European democracies, leaders are hailing a new era of co-operation with Russia. Berlin claims a “special relationship” with Moscow and is moving forward on a series of major energy projects with Russian energy giant Gazprom, one of which is led by the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi traveled to St Petersburg late last year to join in the celebration of his “great friend” Vladimir Putin’s 59th birthday. And in Paris, negotiations are under way for a major arms sale that would allow Russia to acquire one of the most advanced ships in the French navy.

At the same time, democratic dissent inside Russia has been ruthlessly suppressed. On 31 January, the Russian government refused to allow the peaceful assembly of citizens who demonstrated in support of … the right to free assembly, enshrined in article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation: the right “to gather peacefully and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets”.

Likewise, Russian journalists have been increasingly harassed for expressing any criticism of the government. But prosecution is hardly the worst outcome for Russian journalists who fail to report the news in a “patriotic” manner. In 2009, more than dozen of journalists, human rights activists and political opponents were killed.

Having stifled internal criticism of its policies in the Caucasus, the Russian government is now turning its attention to those who criticize them from abroad – and it is being abetted in this project by European businesses and governments. The last victim of Moscow’s censors and their western friends is called Perviy Kavkazskiy (First-Caucasian). This young Russian-language television station was, until the end of January, freely available to people living in Russian-speaking areas. Now, Eutelsat – the leading European satellite provider based in Paris – has taken the channel off the air and refuses to implement the contract negotiated with the TV.

It seems the Russian company Intersputnik made Eutelsat an offer it couldn’t refuse on 15 January, holding out the possibility of millions of dollars in business with the media holdings of Russian gas giant Gazprom on the condition that Eutelsat stop doing business with First-Caucasian. Eutelsat capitulated and sent a disastrous message to the world: no Russian-language television that is not controlled by the Kremlin will be allowed to be aired in the Russian Federation. Even if it is based abroad. Even if it has a contract with a European satellite provider.

The English-language satellite channel, Russia Today, funded and controlled by the Russian government, did not face such problems with European satellites. This channel has recently launched an advertising blitz in the United States and the United Kingdom featuring billboards that show the face of US President Barack Obama morphing into that of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nobody raised any concerns about Russia Today and western viewers will be allowed to receive the propaganda that is broadcasted in Russia. But the very idea of an alternative channel in Russian language seems too “provocative” to some Europeans.

Eutelsat’s collaboration with these policies is a clear violation of the spirit of the EU laws protecting freedom of the press, and French courts may well find that the firm violated more than just the spirit of the law as the case against Eutelstat unfolds in the coming weeks. Still, this is just the latest example of European complicity in the Kremlin’s consolidation of political power inside the country and its reconstitution of the military used to coerce those nations that lie just across the border.

This is the context in which came recent reports that the French government intends to go forward with the sale to Russia of one or more Mistral-class amphibious assault ships. The Russian military has not concealed its plan for these weapons. In September of last year, the Russian admiral Vladimir Vysotsky triumphantly declared that “a ship like this would have allowed the Black Sea fleet to accomplish its mission [invading Georgia] in 40 minutes and not 26 hours”.

Only a little more than a year ago, as Russian tanks occupied parts of Georgia, NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared that there could be “no business as usual with Russia under present circumstances”. Russian forces still occupy Georgian territory, in violation of the ceasefire brokered by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and yet NATO, too, is back to business as usual with Putin’s regime.

As Moscow shuts down opposition newspapers, arrests journalists who fail to toe the government line and bullies its democratic neighbors into submission, some European leaders are not silent. Instead they are arguing for closer ties to Moscow, for energy cooperation, for military for arms deals.

European leaders must take a stand for freedom of speech and in defense of the free media that enables it. This starts by making clear to European companies that they are not supposed to be the obedient tools of the Kremlin’s censorship. The same leaders should also show that, at the beginning of the 21st century, one cannot occupy a foreign territory without consequence. It clearly does not imply selling weapons to occupation forces. At stake is not only the freedom of Russian citizens, but also the very meaning and the honor of Europe.

• The following people endorse this article: Elena Bonner-Sakharov; Konstantin Borovoï, chairman of the Party for Economic Freedom; Vladimir Boukovsky, former political prisoner; Natalia Gorbanevskaia, poet, former political prisoner; Andreï Illarionov, former adviser to Vladimir Putin; Garry Kasparov, leader of United Citizens Front; Serguei Kovaliev, former minister to Boris Yeltsin; Andreï Mironov, former political prisoner; Andreï Nekrasov, filmmaker; Valeria Novodvorskaya, leader of Democratic Unity of Russia; Oleg Panfilov, TV presenter; Grigory Pasko, journalist, ecology activist, former political prisoner; Leonid Pliouchtch, essayist, former political prisoner; Alexandre Podrabinek, journalist, former political prisoner; Zoïa Svetova, journalist; Maïrbek Vatchagaev, historian; Tatiana Yankelevitch, archivist, Harvard; Lydia Youssoupova, lawyer

According to the report, which cited unnamed sources, Russia was considering paying Nauru up to 50 million dollars, which the island had requested for “urgent social-economic projects.”

The newspaper further reported that prior to an announcement in Tskhinvali by Nauruan Foreign Minister Kieren Keke that his country was ready to recognize South Ossetia, he had been in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow to discuss financial aid from Russia to the small country.

Russia recognized the independence of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after a military conflict with Georgia in August 2008. The only other countries to recognize the two republics are Nicaragua and Venezuela, the latter of which only did so after receiving 2.2 billion dollars in Russia credit.

The attempt that followed to elicit recognition from Ecuador turned out to be unsuccessful: President Rafael Correa failed to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and also failed to receive any Russian credit.

The Republic of Nauru is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean that covers approximately 8 square miles and has an estimated population of 14 thousand people. Nauru’s government is notorious for its atypical methods of obtaining income, including becoming a haven for illegal money laundering, selling passports to foreigners, and running Australia’s illegal migrant detention center.

The president had asked the parliamentary Federation Council the day before for an expansion of his authority to deploy troops on foreign soil.

An amendment to a piece of defense legislation that the president signed in November required a special decree from the Federation Council for foreign deployment of troops. Until that point, the legislation only allowed troops to be used abroad as part of the war against international terrorism or in accordance with international agreements.

The Federation Council’s announcement on Wednesday would allow the president himself to make a decision on the use of troops abroad to deflect or prevent aggression from another country, to defend Russian citizens abroad, or to fight pirates.

The initial motivation to amend the defense legislation was the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. At the time, Russia had explained its controversial participation in the war as the defense of its citizens residing in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Both Russia and Georgia blamed each other for instigating the war, while a recent report from the European Union blames both countries in gross violations of international law.

During the highly choreographed production, the prime minister told the country not to hold its breath for his departure from politics, expressed interest in running for president again in 2012, accused jailed Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky of murder, blamed the United States for preventing Russia’s inception into the World Trade Organization, and expounded upon the subtleties of understanding Stalin, among other things.

The Crisis

Even before Putin began to speak, host Maria Sittel took the floor and exalted the government for its handling of the economic crisis. “We all know perfectly well how the year of the crisis began: millions of Russian citizens feared poverty; tens of thousands expected to be fired; business calculated future losses,” she said. But instead of throwing its citizens to the “mercy of fate,” she continued, the government “laboriously, step by step…scrutinized the affairs of individual companies, made agreements with businesses, and helped our national manufacturers.”

Putin himself turned out to be pleased with his work on the crisis. He assured viewers that “the peak of the crisis has been overcome,” although “turbulent phenomena in the world economy, and consequently also in Russia, do remain.”

Despite a nearly 9 percent fall in GDP, a 13 percent fall in industry, and growing inflation, Putin listed a 0.5 percent growth in agriculture and a rising birth rate as commendable compared to the government response to the economic crisis in 1998.

Putin on Terrorism

In the wake of last week’s bombing of the Nevsky Express luxury train, which authorities are calling a terrorist attack, Putin addressed the problem of terrorism in Russia on the whole. “We’ve done a lot to ‘break the spine’ of terrorism, but the menace has not yet been eliminated.”

“It raises the question,” he said, “can we prevent crimes of this type? Our country is enormous, our territory is large, and there is a lot of infrastructure. Nevertheless, we need to work effectively. We need to be on the advance.”

Putin Saves Pikalevo, Again

Among sites chosen to host camera teams to field questions live to the prime minister was Pikalevo, one of Russia’s so-called “mono-towns” dependent on a sole industry – in this case, aluminum. The majority of the town’s 21,000 residents lost their jobs when all three plants were shut down last winter, and the city shut off all heat and hot water in May. A massive protest erupted when the long-unpaid citizens blocked off a nearby federal highway and demanded Putin’s personal intervention. The Prime Minister responded with an embarrassing public chastisement of Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch owner of the largest of the three plants, and ordered him to negotiate a decision that would reopen the factories.

During the broadcast, a manager of the largest of the plants asked the prime minister whether he would return to the town. The reason that this might be necessary, he said, was that the promised negotiations had not yet been signed.

In response, Putin promised that he would travel to any place in Russia where he was needed. “If the situation demands it, I will go to you again, or to any other place at any different point in the Russian Federation – that is my duty,” That aside, Putin said he currently saw “no such necessity.” He promised, however, that the government had control of the situation and an agreement would soon be written.

Indeed, even before the end of the broadcast, reports came in that the agreement between Pikalevo and the company had been signed.

The United States and the WTO

At one point, host Ernest Matskyavichyus told the audience that many questions had come in regarding Russia’s inception into the WTO. In response, Putin abruptly pounced on the United States, blaming it for not annulling the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a piece of Cold War-era legislation intended to help Soviet dissidents and religious minorities emigrate to America. Russia now criticizes the amendment as anachronistic and harmful for trade relations.

Putin said the amendment is used by “representatives of various lobbies in the United States Congress” for “decisions of rather narrow and selfish sectoral economic problems.”

“Entry into the WTO remains our strategic goal, but we get the impression that, due to motives that we are aware of, several countries – including the United States – are hindering our entry into the WTO,” he concluded rather sharply.

Love for Belarus

One question focused on recent angry remarks that the totalitarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had aimed at Putin. “You were harshly criticized by Belarusian President Lukashenko. You don’t answer him. Why?” a viewer asked.

“Maybe it’s love?” Putin replied.

The prime minister added that he has very kind, warm feelings for the Belarusian people, and especially for its government. The Russian government, he said, imports nearly all Belarusian agricultural products and has given the country 3.5 billion dollars over the past two years.

Putin Clarifies his Relationship with Tymoshenko

The prime minister’s position on upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine turned out to be less ambiguous than four years ago, when the Kremlin supported Viktor Yanukovych.

“Why do you support Yulia Tymoshenko in the presidential elections in Ukraine?” one viewer asked.

“I do not support Yulia Tymoshenko in the presidential elections in Ukraine,” Putin replied. “I am cooperating with Yulia Vladimirovna Tymoshenko as the prime minister of the Ukrainian government,” stressing his role as a “humble servant” while also misstating his Ukrainian counterpart’s patronymic (which is actually Volodymyrivna).

Recent agreements concerning Russia’s sale to Ukraine of natural gas have raised speculation that the Kremlin would back Tymoshenko in the upcoming Ukrainian elections.

The Police

A recent slew of high-profile incidents has brought a renewed wave of criticism on Russia’s police forces, and one of the key questions in Thursday’s broadcast reflected this concern.

“The police are now out of favor, and every day there are reports of police attacks on citizens…Maybe, [we should] just dissolve them and create a police force from scratch?”

Putin began his response by saying that no police reform would occur in Russia as has occurred in Georgia and Ukraine.

“In Ukraine, our neighbors and friends have already had this experience. They dissolved what we call the GAI, the road services – nothing good came from this. Bribes increased, and there came to be less order on the roads,” elaborating no further on the situation in Georgia.

In general, Putin said, the police should not be excessively slandered. “I consider it unnecessary to smear all police officers with red paint,” he said, but noted that the reaction to police offenses should be “especially critical, fast, and severe.”

Media attention to problems with the police, which have long plagued Russia, was renewed in April when police chief Denis Yevsyukov killed three people and wounded six in a Moscow supermarket while drunk. Novorossiysky Major Aleksei Dymovsky drew unprecedented media attention in November when he posted two YouTube videos of himself discussing corruption that he had seen in the police force.

Khodorkovsky and Murder

For the first time since the 2005 arrest of oligarch and former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin allowed himself to comment on the controversial case. Khodorkovsky’s trial, in which he was sentenced to eight years in prison for oil embezzlement in the sum of 900 billion rubles (approx. $31 billion), is criticized as highly flawed and politically motivated. Until Thursday, no questions on the subject had been posed during a live broadcast.

“When will Khodorkovsky be released?” a viewer asked via text message.

“This well-known figure is in prison by the sentencing of the court. And the problem is not when he will be released,” Putin stressed, “but so that crimes of this type are never repeated among us,” referring to economic crimes.

The prime minister went on to say that the money resulting from the case went a housing and communal services reform fund that has helped 10 million Russian citizens. “If at some point this money was stolen from the people, it needs to be returned to those same people,” he asserted.

In an unexpected additionally commentary, Putin went on to accuse Khodorkovsky of murder.

Referring to chief Yukos security official Alexey Pichugin, currently serving a life sentence for conspiracy in several murders, Putin remarked that “nobody remembers, unfortunately, that one of the leaders of the security services of the Yukos company is in prison. What, you think that he acted on his own discretion, at his own peril and risk? He had no concrete interests. He is not the main shareholder in the company. It is clear that he acted in the interests and by the instructions of his bosses,” implying that Khodorkovsky had ordered the murders.

Putin for President, Again

Two questions were posed in regards to speculation that Putin might run for a third term as president in 2012.

“Don’t you feel like leaving politics with all its problems and live for yourself, your children, your family, and finally rest?” one viewer asked. “If that’s it, I’ll take your place, just give me a call.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” the prime minister replied.

The second question was from a St. Petersburg student, who directly asked whether Putin was planning to participate in the 2012 presidential elections.

“I’ll think about it,” replied Putin. “There’s plenty of time.”

Approximately an hour after this statement, an Italian reporter asked Russian President Dmitri Medvedev whether it was possible that both he and Putin would run for president in 2012.

“Prime Minister Putin said that he isn’t ruling out this possibility, and I’m also not ruling out this possibility,” replied Medvedev, who was at a press conference in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

“We can agree in what way not to elbow each other, and make a rational decision for our country,” he asserted.

Putin and Stalin

At the end of the program, Putin answered a number of questions that he said he had chosen himself. One of these turned out to concern Stalin.

“Do you consider the activities of Stalin on the whole to be positive or negative?” the question asked.

Saying that he understood the “subtlety” of the question, Putin qualified his answer by saying that there were both positive and negative qualities to the dictator’s reign. “One cannot, in my view, make a judgment on the whole,” said Putin. He praised Stalin for successfully changing the country’s focus from agriculture to industry, and said that victory in World War II was Stalin’s achievement.

At the same time, he continued, these positives “were nevertheless reached at an unacceptable price.”

Putin called Stalin’s repressions, which killed an estimated 30 million people, “a fact,” saying that “millions of our fellow citizens suffered from them. Such a means of managing the government to achieve a result is not acceptable.”

“Here, Thank God, There Aren’t Any Elections”

Putin’s most significant slip of the tongue came the prime minister was asked whether his recent appearance in the hip-hop contest “Battle for Respect” was motivated by his falling ratings.

“Ratings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Here, thank God, there aren’t any elections,” he responded.

Elections in Russia are notoriously fraudulent. Regional elections on October 11 delivered sweeping wins for Putin’s leading United Russia party across Russia, continuing the political monopoly it has held since its conception in 2001. Observers noted massive electoral violations, including ballot stuffing and multiple voting with the same absentee ballot, much of which has been statistically documented. Medvedev himself has admitted that the elections were flawed and chastised United Russia for “backwardness.”

Compiled from reports by Gazeta.ru.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mandzhgaladze qualified her statement by saying that only two categories of people are not allowed in Georgia: “occupying powers and spies sent by the Russian security services.”

Russian State Archive Director Sergei Mironenko and senior researcher at the Center of Caucasus Studies at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Affairs Nikolai Silayev were denied entry into Georgia upon arriving at Tbilisi International Airport on Tuesday.

The two researchers, together with four others, had planned to attend a conference on Georgian-Russian relations from December 1 – 3.

The four other researchers in the delegation left in protest at the decision, and all six returned together to Moscow.

Mandzhgaladze asserted that the two researchers work for the Russian security services.

She added that Georgia “is open for Russian tourists, businessmen, people of the arts, sportsmen or ordinary citizens.”

According to the Moscow Times, the Georgian Institute of Russian Studies invited the Russian delegation, and the researchers had been warned that they might encounter some problems entering the country.

Both banned researchers, however, expressed shock at the decision, and Silayev said that he had recently been able to visit Georgia.

Relations between Russia and Georgia broke down in August 2008 during a military conflict between the two countries over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. Russia has since recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway republic. Russia and Georgia both blame each other for instigating the war.

Georgian Coast Guard Intercepts Trade Vessels between Turkey and Abkhazia

The Georgian Coast Guard recently intercepted an Abkhazian cargo ship filled with scrap metal bound for Turkey and a Turkish cargo ship filled with fuel as part of Georgia’s economic blockade of the breakaway region. The incident raised already high anti-Georgian sentiment in Abkhazia, a de facto independent region backed by Russia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain in a strange state of international and legal quagmire one year on from Russia’s land war with Georgia.

Read more from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Russia Arrests Eight for Hijacking Ship with Dubious Cargo

Russia has charged eight men from Estonia, Latvia, and Russia with hijacking a Russian ship named the Arctic Sea last month. Media reports have said that the ship may have been carrying arms or nuclear material to the Middle East.

Read more from Reuters and the Canadian CBC News.

Kyrgyz Teenager Assaulted in Petersburg: Despite Evidence Contrary, Investigators Claim Violence Was Not Ethnic Hatred

Kyrgyz ninth-grader Tagir Kerimov and a friend were assaulted in Petersburg in February by a group of 25-30 who shouted, “Beat the khuch” and “Russia for Russians” along with other racist and nationalistic slogans. On Friday investigators said that the assault was not incited by ethnicity or nationalistic intent, stunning human rights activists.

Read more from the Moscow Times.

Putin Vows to Settle Debt from Soviet Era

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Ministry of Finance to repay the remaining debt from the USSR. Before the end of the year, Putin plans to close the $34 million debt owed to the London Club of Creditors.

Read more from Pravda.ru.

Russian TV Documentary Caught in False Reporting Scandal

A dispute ensued over the past week between media photographer Arkady Babchenko and the state-run Channel One. The channel aired a documentary accusing the West of manipulating the media, even as it misrepresented a photograph of a wounded soldier.

Read more from The Other Russia and the St. Petersburg Times.

The film, titled “The War of 08.08.08 — The Art of Deception” aired on the one year anniversary of the war, and alleged that Georgian propaganda efforts falsified and staged photographs of bloodshed during the conflict. Comparing photos taken in South Ossetia with images from Iraq, the film concluded that many of the images from the former were too “clean,” a sign that they were faked. There was only one problem: a photo supposedly taken in Iraq was actually the work of a Russian photographer, Arkadiy Babchenko, and was taken in South Ossetia. The image depicts a wounded Russian soldier.

Babchenko, who works for the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was furious that his work was taken out of context, and has filed suit against Channel One. Calling those who produced the film liars in his LiveJournal blog, he has requested 100,000 rubles ($3200 or €2200) for psychological damages. Babchenko believes the misuse was deliberate, as the TV station did not want to acknowledge that the critical Novaya Gazeta reported the truth. The error raises questions about the rest of the film as well, Babchenko said.

“Now I personally have serious doubts about everything else shown in this film,” he wrote.

David Axe, the journalist interviewed as a photo-expert by the documentary, says his words were twisted out of context. In describing Babchenko’s photo, Axe said it showed a seriously injured man, which would be difficult to fake. The documentary translated his words as “Here is an injured person. I shot his photo in Iraq. It would be hard to call this a fake.”

For their part, the film’s creators claim that the error was caused by a technical mistake that happened during the editing process. Sergei Nadezhdin, one of the producers, said the audio went out of synch and connected two different parts that should not have been side by side. The audience, Nadezhdin says, was not misled, since the intention of the clip was to provide an example of an undoctored photo.

Irina Laptiva, a media analyst working for Park.ru, told Russia Profile that journalists are only human and make mistakes, but that they must be quickly corrected.

“If mistakes are made,” she said, “there must be a public apology within the mass media, which would state what was incorrect and when. If they do not do this, then I believe that it is a breach of human rights and copyright.”

Channel One, well known for its other over-the-top documentaries, has yet to issue a formal apology.

—

For further details on the story, read an account by journalist David Axe.

“I want to express my gratitude for inviting me to visit this new country, this new state, South Ossetia, which appeared as a result of difficult, dramatic events and which the Russian people have certainly supported,” Medvedev said at a meeting with South Ossetian separatist leader Eduard Kokoity.  “I think that this first short visit by a Russian president will create a foundation for such contacts, for friendly relations.”

Russia is one of only two countries to recognize the region as an independent country after an armed conflict there escalated to full-blown war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008.  Georgia still considers the region, along with nearby Abkhazia, as its sovereign territory.

Medvedev also announced that Russia was planning to cooperate with South Ossetia on defense matters.  Russia has poured generous resources into the largely impoverished region, and plans to open a military base in the area.  The Russian president went on to pledge support for a number of projects to revive the local economy.

Kokoity, in response, thanked Medvedev for recognizing and supporting South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, meanwhile, called the visit “the most immoral and shameful precedent in centuries.”

—

Read more about the conflict in South Ossetia.

A Very Convenient Conspiracy
May 6, 2009.
Aleksandr Golts
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

Mutiny, as is well known (thanks to [poet] John Harington in the [Samuil] Marshak translation), can never succeed.  Otherwise it’s no longer called a mutiny*.  If the poet was right, then a conclusion can be drawn from this axiom: any description of a failed revolt reads like the script of a mediocre operetta.  Georgian officials are offering up precisely such a story.

And so, on May 5th, Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) uncovered a military plot.  Under watch of the surveillance cameras and microphones of Georgian intelligence, its organizers cheerfully reported that first of all, the participants of the plot were all relatives (son-in-laws, cousins, and such), and secondly, that Russia would support them at any moment.  Five thousand soldiers would be sent, to help take Tbilisi and eliminate several well-known Georgian politicians.  Several former and active military officers were arrested for taking part in the conspiracy.  An hour after they were exposed, a tank battalion mutinied (the only separate armored unit in the Georgian army, it seems) at a base 30 kilometers from the capital.  Its commander, Vice-Colonel Mamuka Gorgishvili, circulated a statement to local media where he underscored that he was refusing command orders, since it was “impossible to calmly watch the collapse of the country and the continuing political confrontation.”  In short, the vice-colonel immediately warned that the battalion would take “no aggressive actions…We are in our barracks and we are not going to leave them.” Well, clearly they’re just like the Decembrists at the Senate square.

The way things developed next was obvious for those who know something of history.  If the conspirators refuse to take initiative, the authorities necessarily take it over.  Just three hours later, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (not earlier noted for his rash courage) appears before the mutinied tank crews, who then calm down, turn in their weapons and surrender to the Georgian court, the fairest court in the world.

In a remarkable manner, this caricature of an abandoned conspiracy works in the interests of all the conflicting parties.  Saakashvili has the chance to connect the growing opposition protests with Russian subversion.  And in such a way show his political opponents as agents of the enemy.  It is no coincidence that the Georgian opposition, sensing the threat, immediately demanded an international investigation.  And one of its leaders, Nino Burjanadze openly said: “I can unequivocally say that I preclude the notion that Georgian armed forces took part in a Russian plan, like the MIA asserts.  These, by the way, are the same soldiers who fought heroically in the Tskhinvali region when their commander-in-chief was running away.”

Aside from discrediting the opposition, Saakashvili gains an excellent opportunity to discredit Russia, which has fought against NATO exercises that are completely unimportant in scale, with an insistence better suited for another cause.  As result, Georgian officials released a peculiar version of events: the tank forces took part in the plot (that is, an egregious crime against the state), in order to derail the NATO maneuvers, which start today.

Aside from that, Saakashvili gains a wonderful chance to cleanse the armed forces, which, to put it mildly, aren’t at all enraptured in a Supreme Commander-in-chief who forced them to take part in blatant military adventurism.

At the same time, this parody of a military conspiracy serves the purposes of Russian foreign policy, root and branch.  According to Moscow’s version of events, Saakashvili’s criminal regime is already running into serious military opposition.  Consequently, his end will come any day now.  Concurrently, our national analysts act as if they don’t understand that Saakashvili’s opponents are just as “anti-Russian” as he is.

And so, what actually happened?  Most likely, the natural irritation of Georgia’s officers with their not-too-competent and not-too-brave commander-in-chief became the focus of interest of Georgia’s intelligence agencies.  And those created yet another clone of “Operation Trest”, that is, a fake anti-government organization.  That’s the only way to explain the video recordings from the Georgian MIA.  I don’t exclude that Russia’s intelligence agencies may have fallen for this provocation (just like the “Intelligence service” once fell for the OGPU [Joint State Political Directorate] provocation).  As result, in the eyes of Georgians, they probably managed to discredit the opposition.  Furthermore, I don’t exclude that Saakashvili managed to prove to his western partners: his country is just a step away from Russian intervention.  Yet this victory is fairly dubious: no one can believe in the stability of a regime protested by its own military.

—

*Harington’s 17th century poem reads:
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

translation by theotherrussia.org