Tuesday, August 11, 2015

While the World Sleeps, Russia Seizes More Georgian Territory



Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 11 – Russian forces have unilaterally moved border markers 800 meters deeper into Georgia, an action that the Georgian foreign ministry has protested in vigorous terms but the rest of the world appears to have ignored, even though such territorial aggrandizement by any country except perhaps Russia would spark protests almost everywhere.

            Yesterday, the Georgian foreign ministry handed over a protest note to the Swiss embassy in Tbilisi which has represented the interests of Russia in Georgia since Moscow’s invasion in 2008 (nr2.ru/News/politics_and_society/Rossiyane-snova-otobrali-u-Gruzii-chast-territorii-103545.html).

            Georgian media report that Russian forces put up banners and signs indicating the border change in the area around the village of Tamarasheni, whose residents said “this banner didn’t appear after the war; it appeared only now.”  When the people there went to harvest their crops, they found that some of their lands were now on the Russian side of the border.

            This is the second time this year that Russian forces have illegally extended their country’s border deeper into Georgia.  A month ago, they did so when American military units were in Georgia to conduct maneuvers. As a result of that change, Russian military units are now 1.5 kilometers from the Tbilisi-Gori highway and close to the Baku-Supsa oil pipelines.


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