Russia, Georgia in Row over ‘Defector’ Soldier

Grigol Vashadze, the Georgian foreign minister, said Tbilisi had informed Swiss embassy, representing Moscow’s diplomatic interests in Georgia, to verify situation involving Russian soldier, who, Tbilisi says, defected from the Russian army and requested asylum in Georgia.

“He will face life imprisonment in Russia if we hand him over,” Vashadze said. “He will be rotten in the Russian jail.”

The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that Junior Sergeant Alexandr Glukhov, who served in the military unit deployed in Akhalgori, breakaway South Ossetia, was captured by the Georgian law enforcement officers and also suggested that Glukhov was forced by the Georgian side to make a televised appeal to grant him asylum in Georgia.

“I plan to live here for a while. I just spoke to my mum to calm her down,” 21-year-old Alexander Glukhov told Reuters on January 27 at a McDonald’s restaurant in Tbilisi. Georgian Interior Ministry officials were present at the fast food restaurant, Reuters said.

“I came to the Georgian side of my own will, to ask for political asylum because I had problems with the commander of my battalion,” he added.

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