Q & A: Georgia-South Ossetia Fighting

Q & A: Georgia-South Ossetia Fighting

August 08, 2008

RFE/RL's Caucasus expert Liz Fuller answers questions on Russia's interest in South Ossetia and recent events that have caused the conflict to boil over.

Q: What does the arrival of Russian troops to the scene mean?

A: It's difficult to say what it means, because the reports on the ground are fragmentary and contradictory. The Georgian TV station Rustavi-2 announced that the Georgian side declared a cease-fire for three hours this afternoon (August 8), from 1500 to 1800 local time, to allow residents to leave Tskhinvali. But the only road open to them that would not be shelled was the road that led south to Georgian territory, and I doubt that many of them would have availed themselves to that offer.

Apparently, North Ossetia has dispatched busses to evacuate Tskhinvali residents north to North Ossetia. This would suggest that, while the Georgians may control the very south of South Ossetia, they don't control most of the north. Or, at least, not the key road north. It's also not clear whether the cease-fire is still holding, or whether there is street fighting. The South Ossetian president apparently has given the Georgians an ultimatum to leave Tskhinvali, but it's not clear exactly how strong -- even with Russian backing -- are."

Q: Can you comment on reports that mercenaries have entered South Ossetia from Russia via the Roki Tunnel to join the fighting?

It's not clear exactly how many mercenaries -- ethnic Ossetians from North Ossetia, or mercenaries from other North Caucasus republics -- have actually entered South Ossetia. Or how many of them [there are]; how well they are armed; how well they are trained.

It's certainly not out of the question. Sympathy with the South Ossetians is very high in other parts of the North Caucasus. There was a meeting in Northern Daghestan, close to the border with Chechnya today -- 1,000 people saying 'we're ready to go and help the Ossetians, just give us the word and we'll be on our way. So, if the conflict continues over a period of days or weeks, we may very well see spontaneous volunteer forces trying to make their way to the conflict to help out. But with nobody coordinating this it would be very difficult to predict in advance what sort of a help they could provide.

Q: What changed in the past few weeks that the long-simmering dispute between Georgia and its breakaway province of South Ossetia would boil over?

A: What appears to have happened, and this is extremely difficult to substantiate, is that tensions have emerged within the South Ossetian leadership -- the de facto president, Eduard Kokoity, appears to be under pressure and it seems as if he is acting as a loose cannon. I mean, up to a point, we've seen the sort of escalation that generally happens during the summer -- the exchanges of artillery fire -- but in July there were reports that both sides were digging new fortifications, and in early July also the Georgian forces displaced a Russian peacekeeping post on Sarabuk, which is one of the two strategic heights commanding Tskhinvali, and this sent off danger signals and presumably led the south Ossetians to think they were facing a new offensive, and Kokoity may have decided that the best form of defense was attack, and that if he escalated attacks against Georgian positions then Russia would step in and help strengthen his own position.

Q: Can you explain Russia's interests in the region, and its role in the conflict and its resolution?

A: Russia, to my mind, has for years -- if not ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union -- seen the South Ossetian conflict as a means of exerting leverage on Georgia. Initially it was the Russian military who used the South Ossetian conflict as a way to hit back at [former Georgian President Eduard] Shevardnadze, because they held Shevardnadze responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. More recently -- since Georgia unequivocally said it wants to become a member of NATO -- by fueling the conflict and demonstrating that the Georgian armed forces aren't capable of controlling the entire territory, Russia has been tacitly trying to demonstrate that Georgia isn't fit to become a NATO member.

As part of this ongoing undermining of Georgian authority in South Ossetia, the Russians have offered Russian passports to the local Ossetian population who otherwise would be trapped within that small enclave and not able to travel anywhere. A cynic would say that having Russian passport and being considered as a hypothetical citizen of the Russian Federation doesn't really guarantee you any kind of safety, or any kinds of rights.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about the peacekeeping operations that are in place in South Ossetia?

A: This was written into the agreement that Yeltsin and Shevardnadze signed in 1992. It envisaged that Russia, North Ossetia, South Ossetia and Georgia would each contribute several hundred men. And, I think, there was written into this agreement some sort of supervisory or monitoring role for the OSCE because the OSCE since then has had a military mission in Tskhinvali looking at the military situation on the ground.

It worked. I mean, the peacekeeping format that has existed since 1992 has worked except for the abortive operation in 2004 and, occasionally, exchanges of machine-gun fire or artillery fire since then. But, again, the Georgians in their single-minded efforts to elbow the Russians out have been lobbying over the past six-12 months to have both the peacekeeping force in South Ossetia and the Russian peacekeeping force in Abkhazia replaced with an international force -- possibly under the auspices of the EU -- some sort of force that Russia would not be able to dominate or manipulate. Possibly a token role for Russia, but not a decisive one.

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Q & A: Georgia-South Ossetia Fighting