Georgian FM Says Russia’s Large-Scale Attack not Likely

Grigol Vashadze, the Georgian foreign minister, said he did not expect Russia would undertake large-scale military hostilities against Georgia similar to the one in August.

When asked by a journalist how real possible reoccurrence of the Russian aggression was, Vashadze said on December 19, that it was a complicated issue, because he said Georgia should on the one hand try not to create “excessive sense of alarm” in order not to scare away foreign investors.

“But on the other hand we should take into consideration the lessens of the August [war] and we should be ready for everything; but to say the truth I do not think Russia will risk to undertake the second military adventure, because the first one has failed to bring any positive practical gains; it has only ruined its international image,” Vashadze said.

He said that Georgia was committed to constructively continue dialogue in frames of the Geneva talks. Although parties made a progress during the third round of talks in Geneva on December 18-19, they failed to finalize the agreement related with prevention and investigation of security incidents across the administrative borders, mediators – EU, OSCE and UN – said after the talks.

“I was contacted by two co-chairs of the Geneva talks and they thanked me – as a foreign minister – for professionalism and constructiveness of the Georgian delegation and for the readiness of the Georgian delegation to continue working in this format,” Vashadze said.

He said that he did not think the similar phone call was made in Moscow “to thank them.”

“Because the Russian Federation has blocked the documents – blocked with the hands of its proxy regimes,” Vashadze said.

He said that on the one hand Tbilisi was disappointed, because in parallel to the Geneva talks, “human rights violations continue in the conflict regions and local population is forced to leave their homes.” Akhalgori is “almost empty,” he said, as both Georgians and Ossetians left the district and only 200 families were remaining there.

“But on the other hand the Russian Federation has received [in the form of the Geneva talks] what it has been resisting for sixteen years – Russia always tried not to allow international actors in the negotiating process,” the Georgian Foreign Minister added, referring to the format of the Geneva talks.

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