Georgia to EU: Putin is more ‘dangerous’ than you think

BRUSSELS – Four years after a war which shocked Europe, Georgia’s EU ambassador has said that Russia is becoming “more dangerous.”

The Georgian envoy, Salome Samadashvili, spoke to EUobserver on Thursday (9 August), after Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed an inflammatory film about the conflict.

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Putin on Wednesday confirmed the phone call and told Russian media he drew up plans for the invasion two years in advance.

“It’s within the framework of this plan that the Russian side acted. It was prepared by the general staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. It was approved by me, agreed with me,” he said.

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For Georgia’s EU envoy, they show the Union should heed Georgia’s warnings that Russia is still a threat.

“The current Russian government is … becoming more and more disdainful of the EU’s opinion and openly shedding any pretence of respect for international law. They are [becoming] even more dangerous to neighbours like us,” Samadashvili told this website.

She noted that Russia is to hold a military exercise – Kavkaz 2012, to take place in North Ossetia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian region – during Georgian elections in October.

“The statement made by Putin taken in the current context – its ongoing occupation [of Abkhazia and South Ossetia], the military exercise, its continuous attempts to destabilise our country – is a thinly veiled threat, an encouragement for those who committed ethnic cleansing against Georgian citizens,” she said.

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“Clearly, after everything else failed to remove a pro-Western government from power, they [Russia] moved to a measure of last resort – full scale invasion,” Samadashvili said.

Full article: Georgia to EU: Putin is more ‘dangerous’ than you think (EUobserver)

The Russian Military Has an Action Plan Involving Georgia if Iran Is Attacked

Bits of information have been appearing, indicating the essence of Russian military action. Last December it was disclosed that families of servicemen from the Russian base in Armenia have been evacuated to Russia, while the troops have been moved from the capital, Yerevan, north to Gumri – closer to the borders of Georgia and Turkey. The preparation of Russian forces in Armenia for action in the event of military conflict with Iran began “two years ago” (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 15).

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Large scale “strategic” military exercises Kavkaz-2012 are planned for next September, but it is reported that preparations and deployments of assets have begun already because of the threat of the possible war with Iran. New command and control equipment has been deployed in the region capable of using GLONASS (Russian GPS) targeting information. The air force in the South Military District (SMD) is reported to have been rearmed “almost 100 percent” with new jets and helicopters. In 2008, Kavkaz-2008 maneuvers allowed the Russian military to covertly deploy forces that successfully invaded Georgia (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 16).

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The above stream of reports by official spokesmen and carried by government news agencies describes the forming of an offensive spearhead force in the SMD facing Transcaucasia. The force is too heavily armed with modern long-range weapons to be exclusively intended to take on the dispersed rebel guerrilla forces in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. This week, the Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council Giga Bokeria told radio Ekho Moskvi about the growing threat of a war with Russia (Ekho Moskvi, April 2).

In Tbilisi, the possible threat of a new Russian invasion is connected to the parliamentary elections scheduled for next October and possible disturbances that may accompany them. According to polls, the ruling party of President Mikheil Saakashvili seems to be poised for another landslide victory, while the opposition movement, organized by the Russian-based billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, seems to be failing to gather mass support.

Of course, Moscow would be glad to see the electoral defeat of Saakashvili, but the Iranian war is a much more important issue. The Russian spearhead may be ordered to strike south to prevent the presumed deployment of US bases in Transcaucasia, to link up with the troops in Armenia, and take over the South Caucasus energy corridor along which Azeri, Turkmen and, other Caspian natural gas and oil may reach European markets. By one swift military strike Russia may ensure control of all the Caucasus and the Caspian states that were its former realm, establishing a fiat accompli the West, too preoccupied with Iran, would not reverse. At the same time, a small victorious war would unite the Russian nation behind the Kremlin, allowing it to crush the remnants of the prodemocracy movement “for fair elections.” And as a final bonus, Russia’s military action could perhaps finally destroy the Saakashvili regime.

Full article: The Russian Military Has an Action Plan Involving Georgia if Iran Is Attacked (The Jamestown Foundation)