Russia could become more aggressive

Russia could become more aggressive; think some Georgian analysts, because recently Moscow has become quite irritated by Tbilisi’s diplomatic success at different levels in the international arena. The Kremlin’s desire to cheat the world and impose on it recognition of two puppet entities as independent states on the Georgian territory – failed. This Russian designed ‘new reality’ is not accepted by the world and more and more often the regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali are being named as Russian occupied territories.

Nevertheless, Moscow continues to build up its military presence on those territories. Therefore it increases their infrastructure by introducing different sophisticated weapons of assault. More soldiers are being deployed in these places, all of which proves vividly that the Kremlin does not intend to retreat whereas the whole world demands that it follows the August 12, 2008 ceasefire commitment and withdraws from the regions. Georgian analysts do not rule out some military provocations on the administrative border with the breakaway regions but it is unlikely that a full scale war will be unleashed. The military provocations will have the intention of putting psychological pressure on the Georgian population as well as its leadership reminding everyone that Russia is ‘undefeatable’ and is still here.

The Russian threat will be transformed and will be designed to influence the domestic policy of neighbouring country - Georgia. There is a widely held opinion that open military aggression failed in 2008 and it is doomed to failure in the future as there would be too much of an international resonance. Therefore Russia will try to adopt different tactics, undermining the situation inside the country, destabilizing it in an attempt to bring to power in Georgia a pro Russian government. That would ultimately change the country’s foreign policy substantially. Various developments prove that this is Moscow’s secret plan. Recent explosions were part of such tactics and, besides, there are already political parties in Georgia which have a clear cut pro Russian orientation, though they are neither numerous nor powerful at this point.

In roughly a year, Georgia will enter a new stage of pre election fever, meaning parliamentary elections in 2012. Though it is a bit early now to predict what kind of slogans will be put forward by some oppositional parties during the pre election campaigning, some analysts think that, by then, Moscow will be trying to get involved more deeply in the elections process in Georgia so that its interests can be promoted here. A similar thing happened in Ukraine and Moldova so there is precedence for this. So the Georgian political elite, whether it is the ruling administration or opposition, should be very cautious and responsible. The ruling power should make certain concessions to allow real patriotic opposition to receive fair elections. Only such democratic moves will guarantee non proliferation of Russian oriented forces onto the ruling level.

We think that the western friends of Georgia should explain to the Georgian leadership the possible consequences.