Russia’s Blunt Warning over Peacekeepers

Russian top military official has warned that Russian peacekeepers’ “patience is not limitless” and “there could be bloodshed” if provocations continued against them.

General Lieutenant Alexander Burutin, first deputy of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, said that the Russian peacekeepers had showed “considerable restraint and patience” when they were “banditry attack” on June 17.

Four Russian peacekeepers were detained and their truck and ammunition, including anti-tank missiles, were seized by the Georgian law enforcement officers in the Zugdidi district on the Georgian side of the Abkhaz administrative border. Four peacekeepers were released hours after the incident; the truck was also returned, but ammunition remains confiscated by the Georgian authorities pending investigation.

“Recently the situation in the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian conflict zones has been substantively changed,” Gen. Lieut. Burutin said. “It has seriously aggravated. On June 17 at 6:37 p.m. a group of civilians, which, as it later became clear, were Georgian law enforcement officers led by the deputy head of the criminal police of the Zugdidi district, banditry attacked the truck of Russian peacekeepers. By using physical force and at a gunpoint, they arrested Russian peacekeepers, seized their armament, military hardware and property.”

“I should declare it officially that under those circumstances, the Russian peacekeepers had a full right to use arms and ammunition to protect themselves, their armament and military hardware,” he continued. “They are entitled to act so under the decision of the Council of Heads of States of the Commonwealth of Independent States from 1994 On Ceasefire and Separation of Forces [the agreement was signed by the Georgian and Abkhaz sides and it is not a decision of CIS], as well as under the mandate of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces. If the arms were used, the consequences would have been extremely grave, and casualties among the attackers would have been inevitable.”

“At the same time, our servicemen showed considerable restraint and patience; they did not fire even one shot that made it possible to avoid casualties. However, in the future we cannot guarantee that our servicemen will act in this patient way. Their patience is not limitless. The consequences will be grave and there could be bloodshed. It is beyond doubt that the Georgian side will have to assume the responsibility for these provocations and their consequences.”

Tbilisi says that transportation of ammunition, in particular of anti-tank missiles without prior notifying about it to the Georgian authorities was a violation of the agreements.

“As far as threat of bloodshed is concerned, we hear this rhetoric constantly from our northern neighbor; the only thing I can tell them is that we are not afraid, if they want let them try,” Grigol Vashadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister, said.

“The Russian peacekeepers should first of all follow commitments undertaken under their mandate. The mandate was violated, because Russian peacekeepers were transporting ammunition and they had to inform the Georgian authorities in advance about it,” MP Lasha Zhvania, the chairman of the Georgian Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs, said on June 19. “As far as their [peacekeepers’] patience is concerned, they should better look at us. We have faced so many provocations from them that we should have also ran out of patience, but we are showing restraint.”