George Khutsishvili from Vienna, Austria (12-14 August 2008)
George Khutsishvili from Vienna, Austria (12-14 August 2008):
RUSSIA CONTINUES TO “PUNISH” GEORGIA.
GEORGIA’S ALLIES ARE TRYING TO HELP.
THE WORLD CONTINUES TO WATCH
Since the start of the crisis, a new informational war has been spiralled across the huge media space controlled or influenced by Russia. Russian media sources reiterated the official version of events: Georgians have launched an unprovoked surprise attack on South-Ossetian city of Tskhinvali which has destroyed the city completely, killed around 2000 civilians, and made the rest flee from the area. It is yet to be investigated what happened on 8th of August. The figure of casualties in the breakaway region is not proven or confirmed by any evidence. The Russian media and officials avoid mentioning the damage and losses suffered by the Georgian side, or the fact that the Russian troops have invaded, bombed and purposefully damaged infrastructure in places – including densely populated urban areas – not related to the conflict zone of South Ossetia. They depicted the whole operation as “restoring the order” and creating a buffer zone around the zone of conflict. Georgia is qualifying the same operation as a military occupation of the sovereign country followed by war crimes.
As part of the Russian public relations strategy, immediately before his meeting with President Sarcozy started, President Medvedev announced that “the aggressor has been punished” and therefore the Russian military operation in Georgia was over. As soon as these words appeared on the world’s TV screens, the media coverage of Georgia crisis has diminished significantly: the problem is on its way to settlement, so let us turn to other issues. Yet this did not last long, as it became clear that the Russian military did not intend to halt their operations, and the assault on and looting of the Georgian town Gori near the capital Tbilisi happened after the agreed ceasefire document was made public.
As soon as the Sarcozy-Medvedev ceasefire plan was announced, CNN posed a question that has not in those days found an extended or plausible answer: is the current crisis in Georgia going to affect Russia’s relations with the outside world? The analysts seemed reluctant to go deeply into such a slippery soil, but the question persisted on TV screens. The framework of the question was easily readable from the numerous footages and discussions conducted by CNN that swarmed the screen in the same days: are investors likely to lose or decrease their interest in Russia because of the Georgia crisis, while the investments in Russia are proving to be extremely rewarding and profitable? That prospect looked brighter for an outer eye than a prospect of e.g. BP who already invested billions in Baku-Tbilisi-Jeikhan oil pipeline, with a greater gas pipeline crossing the same unstable zone in the Caucasus as an immediate future’s project. The economic environment was predetermining the answer to the posed question: the investors will not be disappointed by the shocking and ruthless showdown on a small neighboring nation. Undemocratic and authoritarian as the current regime in Moscow may be, there are little worries about the safety of the investments made in Russian market. And what matters more in international relations?
At the same time, President Bush’s and especially Condoleezza Rice’s statements stood out as growingly supportive of Georgia, demanding from the Russians to stop their military and observe the agreement achieved between the EU President Sarcozy and the Russian President Medvedev. Secretary Rice compared Russian invasion in Georgia to the events in Czechoslovakia back in Soviet times and stressed this was not 1968 on the calendar. She spoke about the coming isolation of Russia on international scale if their leadership does not stop the invasion and stick to the ceasefire agreement.
Could the international support for Georgia in those days be more salient or efficient? Diplomats deem it could be definitely more salient and, to some extent, leading to a more efficient pressure on Russia, if not for the numerous warnings previously made to Georgia’s leadership by the world’s leaders not to make risky steps in the conflict zones, as this would immediately turn against Georgia with long-run unpredictable consequences for regional stability. Georgian leadership always assured friends and partners it did realise risks and made valid calculations, but left everyone uneasy in view of the growing military expenditures and preparations in the country. Realists admit that no one should have expected the external partisan intervention of the West in Georgia that might have brought armed confrontation with the Russian troops, nor even imposing of the economic sanctions on Russia. In all the voices reacting to the crisis, the UN so far remains silent and neutral, preferring to cover behind the shield of “insufficient information” and “need for consultations”.
Still, the circle of heads of state standing around Saakashvili at a mass support demonstration in the Georgian capital on August 12, 2008 – heads of state of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – might have been wider and stronger. The countries recently liberated from the post-Communist influence are swiftly sympathising with and readily consolidating around a victim of Russian imperialism, being careful at the same time not to lead their own relations with a dangerous neighbour to a critical stage. Others, having found and applied a balancing treatment with Russia in a more distant past, like Finland, or Western Europeans who today largely depend on Russian energy supply but believe they can regulate and control the consequences, seem unlikely to take a more active stance. There seems to be no international consensus at the moment on supporting the US approach and assessment of the crisis and its consequences. But this will also change if Russians before the whole world’s eyes persist in invading and damaging the sovereign state in the 21st century.