Russia and the CIS News Digest
South Ossetia Clashes Escalate
Georgian Cabinet Ministers reported the deaths of four Georgian soldiers in gun battles with South Ossetian forces during the night of Aug. 15-16, with another killed the following night. Georgian Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze blamed South Ossetiaan autonomous district within Georgia, bordering on Russia in the North Caucasusfor violating the latest ceasefire between their forces, a charge the South Ossetians disputed. Speaking on Aug. 18, Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Loshchinin accused Georgia of violating the ceasefire. There were gun battles again on Aug. 19, along the road into Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. Russian TV reported that unspecified Georgian units marched on Tskhinvale and were cut off by Russian peacekeepers.
There is intense debate about an alleged "third force," provoking the clashes. Russian state TV's Vesti program showed Russian commander Gen. Svyatoslav Nabzdorov saying, "You can call it a third force; I call it the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs." In Tbilisi, meanwhile, Georgian officials have started saying that the "third force" is comprised of mercenaries from the Russian North Caucasus, including Cossack units. Izvestia ran a front-page feature on the Cossack factor, quoting a Cossack leader from the Russian border region, who promised to come to the aid of his Ossetian brothers. Izvestia's headline was, "Russia being dragged into a new Caucasus war." Other Russian media have covered the situation as looking "less like sporadic conflicts, and more like full-scale war."
A complicating element is that thousands of inhabitants of both South Ossetia and the autonomous region of Abkhaziaboth Russian ethnics and those from other ethnic groupshave applied for and been granted Russian citizenship in recent months. Now, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and other Russian officials cite the need to defend Russian citizens, even though Georgia does not recognize these people's Russian citizenship.
Georgian President Michael Saakashvili laid out his latest position in an op-ed in the Aug. 17 Wall Street Journal. He called for the United States, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to mediate talks between Georgia and South Ossetia on three issues: demilitarization of South Ossetia, followed by the deployment to the former conflict zone of an international peacekeeping force; expansion of the mandate of the OSCE observer mission in South Ossetia; and establishment of joint Russian-Georgian border and customs posts to block smuggling through the Roki tunnel between South Ossetia and Russia.
On Aug. 16, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said that Saakashvili intends to call for an international conference to discuss South Ossetia, a proposal rejected by Moscow. In accordance with Saakashvili's demand for increased OSCE (as opposed to Russian) mediation of the crisis, the OSCE announced Aug. 19 that it would send a fact-finding delegation to South Ossetia in early September.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, now on a working vacation in Sochi (not far from Abkhazia), stressed Aug. 18 that Russia continues to desire to play the role of mediator in the conflict, saying that the conflict "cannot be" a Russia-Georgia confrontation. Putin traced the crisis to the late Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia's "mistake" in cancelling the autonomy of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the early 1990s.
Rumsfeld, Ivanov Confer in St. Petersburg
The U.S. and Russian navies will conduct joint exercises this September in the Norwegian Sea, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced Aug. 14, after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in St. Petersburg. Ivanov said they had also discussed the possibility of Russian cooperation with the U.S. in missile defense.
The current fighting in Georgia was high on the defense ministers' agenda, according to reports. Rumsfeld also briefed Ivanov on U.S. plans to reconfigure its global military forces. Ivanov expressed Russia's ongoing dissatisfaction with the build-up of NATO activity, particularly in the Baltic countries. He warned that NATO planes, flying patrols over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, increase the risk of incidents. Referring to the squadron of NATO fighter jets used in the overflights, Ivanov said at the Aug. 14 press conference in St. Petersburg, "We cannot understand how these four planes can intercept al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or anything else. The only thing they can intercept is a mythical Soviet threat."
Russia To Increase Military Spending
President Putin has announced an increase in Russian military spending for next year, telling an Aug. 12 meeting of Russian military, law-enforcement and financial agencies that the hike will be by 40% above 2004 spending. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said this meant an increase of nearly 70 billion rubles ($2.4 billion).
Besides tasks on the international defense front, which Putin described as "difficult," Kudrin noted that 55,000 officers are slated to receive cash payments to enable them to acquire home mortgages, and that overall monetary payments to military personnel will increase in a range from 50-120%. Those payments are in compensation for the abolition of free rides on public transport, recently passed by the State Duma.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that the number of Russian soldiers working on contract, as opposed to conscripts, will increase to 50,000 by 2005. "We intend to speed up the program of staffing the Russian armed forces with contract soldiers next year," he said. "We are transferring two divisions with a total strength of 25,000-27,000 men, to a contract basis."
U.S. Pontificates on 'Rule Of Law' in Yukos Case
The U.S. State Department issued a statement Aug. 13 on the trial of former Yukos Oil executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, advising Russia that "all parties need to arrive at a solution that resolves this case in accordance with the rule of law and due process." Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that the Russian legal system should not be influenced by what he called "political considerations," adding that the U.S. and "the international business community" were especially concerned about a "threat to private property rights." The statement came as crude oil prices soared towards $50/barrel and uncertainty continued about the ability of Yukos, which produces 2% of world oil output, to keep up deliveries. Yukos Chief Financial Officer Bruce Misamore, an American, said Aug. 15 that the company is likely to seek bankruptcy protection, as Russian authorities continue to confiscate its cash and other assets to settle back tax bills.
British Troops Hold Maneuvers in Kazakhstan
Around 150 British troops arrived in Kazakhstan Aug. 17 for a 10-day training exercise with Kazakh troops, near the country's commercial center and former capital, Almaty, The News of Pakistan reported. It the second British-Kazak exercise of its kind, involving air mobile infantry. This exercise, however, takes place at a time when there is growing realization that Western countries, including the United States, are moving forward to strengthen Kazakhstan's military amid their "concerns" about the vulnerability of Kazakh oil installations. Kazakhstan borders China and has invited Beijing to participate in its oilfield development.
On Aug. 13, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers met with Kazakh military officials to discuss strengthening military ties. Myers was also in Uzbekistan, where the United States has a military base. About the same time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Georgia, with which the U.S. is developing a strong military relationship, and Azerbaijan.
|