TBILISI
Georgia marked the 13th anniversary of a short but devastating war with Russia over the weekend amid political squabbling as to who was responsible for the five-day armed conflict and its deep consequences.
Flags flew at half-mast across the country, and the country’s ceremonial President and its Prime Minister took part in ceremonies to honour military and civilian victims. However, the blame game continued.
The titular President, Salome Zurabishvili, and 39-year-old Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili had differing views on the war anniversary.
Zurabishvili said while the Georgian people might not be seeing a concrete path leading to the restoration of territorial integrity, “not seeing this [certain] path does not mean the path is not laying ahead of us.”
“Today is not the day for mourning, but of hope that shall not be given up. I recall how we hoped for years for Georgia’s independence when we were still the Soviet Union, and everyone said it was impossible.”
There has been no progress in re-uniting Georgia with either of its separatist regions, South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Neither is seen as having any latitude to make decisions independent of Moscow, upon which they both rely on for enormous financial aid.
PM Garibashvili blamed the former government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili left Georgia eight years ago and is now a Ukrainian citizen and anti-corruption adviser in Kyiv.
Garibashvili said the war had been a “provocation”.
“…I would like to remind everyone no government should repeat similar anti-state provocations,” he said.
He repeated the mantra that the current authorities, who preside over a dysfunctional political system after elections last year, which the opposition says were flawed, were pursuing a “pragmatic” policy.
“We have averted…more escalation, more hardships, and the destruction war brings.”
LONG LEAD UP TO CONFLICT
Though there had been months of sporadic fighting between Russian-backed separatists in the South Ossetia area and Georgian units, events came to a head on the night of August 7-8, 2008.
Thousands of Russian troops entered the tiny territory, at the time home to no more than 50,000 people, and overwhelmed Georgian defences.
The Russian air force bombed targets deep inside Georgia, killing civilians in populated areas and knocking out air defences, occupying main towns and threatening to march on the capital, Tbilisi.
In the process, 25,000 ethnic Georgians were forced to flee the mountain region. Only a few thousand have returned, the rest are not allowed to.
The Russian military had already been establishing military bases in the former Soviet autonomous district long before August 8, when it had troops in the area as part of a “peacekeeping contingent.”
It turned the area into a virtual military camp. It now has more than a dozen military outposts in the region, many close to the main highway connecting the east and west of Georgia.
An estimated 20,000 people remain in South Ossetia itself, which is cut off from the rest of Georgia and accessible only via circuitous route into Russia or via helicopter.
Official estimates put military losses at about 300 dead on both sides combined during the fighting and another 400 civilian deaths. Upwards of 1,000 were injured.
The fighting had gone on at high intensity for more than a week before Georgia sent what troops it had – estimates are that 10,000 took part – many poorly trained – into the area and briefly occupied the regional centre, Tskhinvali.
Military experts estimate Russia, by contrast, sent 70,000 troops into the area after weeks of exercises near the Georgian border.
Many believe the Russian military losses were far higher than the official estimates. Some units entering Georgia, they say, were also unprepared and not given significant air support, making them sitting ducks.
Several Russian commanders were dismissed after the active phase of the conflict.
The then Georgian leadership later explained that as a country of less than 4 million, it had little chance of successfully facing down Russia with a population of 140 million, a nuclear arsenal and arguably the second-biggest military in the world.
Rather, it said, it sought to use its very limited resources to draw international attention to the conflict, long-simmering but largely unnoticed.
If this was the intent, it worked.
Within days a who’s-who of Western leaders descended on Tbilisi.
Germany’s Angela Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and French President Nikolas Sarkozy were among those who flew in.
Within days a cease-fire was signed. Some Russian units were slow to withdraw from areas outside South Ossetia or Abkhazia, another separatist area where it has long maintained effective control through military means.
Within weeks, the European Union set up its first major peacekeeping operation, the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM).
But the mission has been crippled by a Russian and local separatist refusal to allow them entry into either South Ossetia or Abkhazia.
Instead, the Europeans patrol what are called the Administrative Border Lines (ABLs) between Russian-controlled South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and areas under the control of the Georgian government.
This has not stopped Russian forces from erecting fortifications or, in some cases, inching deeper into Georgia in a process labelled “borderisation”.
Russia quickly “recognised” the two breakaway entities as “independent” soon after the ceasefire. But only a few micro-states in Oceania followed suit, along with Kremlin friends like Venezuela and Nicaragua. Syria, another Moscow-supported country, extended recognition in 2020.
FOREIGN COMMENTARY
Western countries took a different tack.
“We stand in solidarity with the people of Georgia and look forward to the day when they will be reunited,” said State Department Spokesman Ned Price.
“…Thirteen years ago, Russian forces invaded Georgia, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing several thousand more from their homes.
“The Russian Federation’s occupation has come at a tragic human cost.”
Georgia scored an important symbolic victory in early 2021 when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia exercised “effective control” in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
As such, its ruling said Russia is responsible for the breach of several provisions and articles of the European Convention of Human Rights – both during and after the 2008 war.
Russia has said there is no way it will reconsider the recognition of the two regions.
Georgia broke diplomatic ties with Russia after the recognition.
While South Ossetia makes little pretensions to independence and has sought integration into Russia, bigger Abkhazia has often chafed under effective Kremlin control. It has hinted it wants more direct talks with Tbilisi.