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 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.

In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta on November 20, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said that the doctrine will now provide for a possible preemptive nuclear strike depending on situational considerations and the intentions of a potential adversary.

The secretary cited the desire to retain the status of Russia as a nuclear power in order to act as a deterrent, especially from other nuclear powers, as a main reason for the change in doctrine. “A potential adversary should comprehend the futility of unleashing aggression with the use of not only nuclear, but of conventional means of destruction,” said Patrushev. “The inevitability of retribution is a sobering factor for any potential aggressor.”

That said, Patrushev stressed that the military doctrine was defensive and that Russia categorically opposes the use of military force – let alone a nuclear strike – to settle any conflict.

However, the secretary cited NATO expansion, international terrorism, and conflict in the North Caucasus as evidence that Russia continues to face potential military threats, apparently justifying the nuclear policy. He singled out last year’s war in Georgia as an example of the “senseless policy and unmeasured ambitions of [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili” that “directly affected the life and security of our citizens.”

Military analysts were divided in response to the doctrine. An article in the Christian Science Monitor reported that experts were divided into two groups: those who saw the policy as increasingly menacing towards Russia’s post-Soviet neighbors, and those who saw it as an expression of vulnerability in a time of radical military reorganization.

“Naturally, the army is weakened, temporarily weakened, by these very radical changes,” said Vitaly Shlykov, an adviser to the Russian Defense Ministry. “It’s natural that we would rely more on our nuclear deterrent during this transition, though it’s debatable whether that should be done in the loud fashion that Patrushev did.”

The new military doctrine, which will be the third version introduced since 1993, comes at a time of heightened military hostility from the Kremlin. A recent bill passed by the State Duma expands the potential role of troops deployed abroad, and NATO has expressed concern that war games in September between Russia and Belarus were “the largest since the end of the Cold War.”

“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.”

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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